A mishmash of informed snark, piquant opinions, refined nastiness, occasional schmaltz, & tawdry graphics, served up continuously since 2006 by COSMIC CONNIE, aka CONNIE L. SCHMIDT. Covering New-Age/New-Wage culture & crapitalism, pop spirituality & religion, pop psychology, self(ish)-help, alt-health hucksterism, conspiranoia, business babble, media silliness, Scamworld, politix, & related (or occasionally unrelated) matters of consequence.
Showing posts with label Devin Nunes' cow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Devin Nunes' cow. Show all posts
Back in March of this year, the Interwebz were
all a-Twitter about a defamation flawsuit filed by Congressclown
Devin Nunes (R-California), who is currently the rank republican
member... I mean the ranking republican member of various
committees and subcommittees of the US House of Representatives,
and who in more recent weeks has taken his comedy stylings to the public impeachment
hearings against #NotMyPresident Donald John Trump.
The Nunes litigation that had, and still has, the
Internet bellowing with laughter is Devin's suit against a fake
cow on Twitter, as well as against various other fake parties.
Actually they're satirical Twitter accounts that make fun of our
little diva Dev. His feelings have been terribly hurt by the
derision. I was one of countless hordes of folks who snarked
about this when the story was new-ish -- here's that Whirled link for you -- and I'm back with another round because of a couple
of recent developments.
The first development is really just a humorous addendum to the ongoing phony-cow saga. Since the lawsuit was initiated in March, Nunes has
been laboring to get Twitter to give up the goods on the anon
Twitter users who run the fake-cow account and another satirical
account by "Devin Nunes' Mom." In October, Nunes'
attorney issued a subpoena demanding records from former
Democratic National Committee employee Adam Parkhomenko, who
presumably had been corresponding with the puckish anons.
Parkhomenko's attorney responded with a filing to quash the
subpoena, arguing that the Twitter accounts are clearly satirical
and do not constitute defamation, and that the courts have a
responsibility to protect anonymous communications, in the
interests of protecting free speech. On November 26, the Sacramento
Bee reported:
“No reasonable person would believe
that Devin Nunes’ cow actually has a Twitter account, or
that the hyperbole, satire and cow-related jokes it posts are
serious facts,” reads the filing in Virginia’s Henrico
County Circuit Court. “It is self-evident that cows are
domesticated livestock animals and do not have the
intelligence, language, or opposable digits needed to operate
a Twitter account. Defendant ‘Devin Nunes’ Mom’
likewise posts satirical patronizing, nagging, mothering
comments which ostensibly treat Mr. Nunes as a misbehaving
child.”
For extended (and well-deserved) mockery, check
out this Damage Report video.
If you can't access the embedded vid, here's the direct YouTube link.
The second development that inspired me to return
to the old blogging board on behalf of our delicate Devin is the
announcement a couple of days ago of yet another
defamation flawsuit he's filed. This one is
about more serious matters. True to recent threats he'd made, Nunes is suing CNN for $435 million over a report that an associate of Trump's personal
ghoul Rudy Giuliani claimed Nunes had met with a former Ukrainian
official late last year in Vienna, in order to help dig up some
dirt on former VP Joe Biden. Since Trump et al.'s shenanigans re
Ukraine are at the center of the impeachment hearings, it's
understandable that Devin would be a little upset.
Indeed, employing his customary histrionics, Nunes disputed the
story and called the CNN report "demonstrably false and
scandalous" and a "hit piece," despite the fact
that other parties in question stated their willingness to
testify under oath that the story is true. Nunes added that CNN
is the mother of fake news and is eroding the fabric of America.
One can only hope that Turley is right. In fact, I'm willing to
exercise some rare-for-me optimism and predict that the efforts
of both Nunes and Turley will strengthen the case for
impeachment. At least I'm willing to entertain that possibility,
or let it entertain me.
* * * * *
It's abundantly clear by now that when he isn't
busy with his overwrought performances in public hearings, and
his other attempts to embed himself even more deeply into Trump's
aperture, Devin Nunes is udderly consumed with suing people and
animals, both real and imaginary. This past October, the LA
Times ran a piece by columnist Robin Abcarian, summarizing the frivolous and vexatious litigation in which Nunes
had been involved up until that time. Besides
the fake-cow litigation, Nunes also sued an organic peach farmer
and various reporters. Abcarian wrote:
To help get a sense of the injury
caused by an organic peach farmer, reporters and a fake cow,
Nunes’ lawsuits first lay outwhat
a fantastic guy Nunes is:
“Nunes’ career as a U.S. Congressman is distinguished by
his honor, dedication and service to his constituents and his
country, his honesty, integrity, ethics, reputation for
truthfulness and veracity.”
This is a helpful corrective, I guess, because most people
think of Nunes as the Trump lackey who sneaked into
the White House in the
middle of the night last year to receive information that he
turned around and claimed to be presenting to Trump for the
first time the next day. Instead of really trying to figure
out how Russia had mucked about in the 2016 election, Nunes
was helping Trump make a case against American spy agencies.
But this current Ukrainian sideshow must really be rattling him.
As Scott Shackford, writing for the Libertarian publication
Reason, noted, Nunes is getting a taste of his own medicine. After all, he once attacked those who wanted to
restrain the NSA's snooping, but now the shoe is on the other
cloven hoof.
Now this surveillance apparatus that
Nunes has long supported has happily provided his political
opponents with information that could destroy his career. The
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (which Nunes
used to chair, and where he is now the ranking minority
member) just published its impeachment report.
It shows calls between Nunes and Rudy Giuliani in 2016, as
Giuliani was making the media rounds arguing that Ukrainian
officials colluded to help Hillary Clinton's presidential
campaign. This information will most certainly be used to
argue that Nunes is not just a defender of Trump but also an
active participant in Giuliani's Ukrainian push.
As the ranking Republican on the
powerful House Intelligence Committee, Nunes holds one of the
top posts in Congress. Nunes should have disclosed to his
committee colleagues that he had those phone calls last
spring. One expert on government ethics took it a step
further and said Nunes should have recused
himself from the
impeachment hearings, rather than acting as No. 1 Trump
defender.
To advance the cause of getting at the truth, Nunes should
come clean on the phone calls and tell the House what was
discussed. He should also provide travel records to debunk
the charge that he met in Vienna last December with the
Ukrainian to get information that might hurt Biden; Nunes
says he was in Libya and Malta.
Short of that, his actions continue to reduce him to being a
mere partisan — the label with which he loves to tarnish
his Democrat colleagues...
Yeah, what the Bee said. And by the
way, their parent company, McClatchy, has also been sued by
Nunes. But if his goal is to chill free speech... well, as the Bee
pointed out in a November 27 editorial, it's
not working (so far, anyway). The fake cow keeps on mooing, and the online jeers
are only growing louder.
I'm probably only the four-millionth or so person
to mention this, but have you noticed a certain hyper-sensitivity in many of the conservative/libertarian manly men (and a
few proud and defiant women) -- you know, the ones who are
currently infesting the political and cultural landscape with
their bright red caps and fact-devoid social media memes? Have
you observed, as I have, that they seem to have awfully thin skins --
especially when you consider their derisive sneers about the
oppressive, America-threatening "political correctness"
of the left, and their screeds about wimpy liberals (aka
"snowflakes") who are hypersensitive to
"triggers" and have an insatiable need for "safe
spaces?" I have previously danced around the theme of
right-wing snowflakery, e.g., in this May 2016 post (trigger
warning: contains nekkid Donald Trump picture). But it's a matter
that has captured my attention more fully in light of rabid Republican "strategist" Devin Nunes'
comic $250 million lawsuit against Twitter, a made-up mommy, and
a fake cow. (And I'm probably only the
four-millionth or so person to publicly write about this, but I
never claimed to be a groundbreaker.)
Anyway. From the Vox article linked to just above:
A member of Congress since
January 2003, Nunes is perhaps best known nationally first
for his involvement in the Benghazi investigation and second for his dogged defense of Donald
Trump, upon whose transition team
Nunes served. It was Nunes, for example, who wrote the 2018 memo on wiretapping that many Trump supporters believed
would permanently damage special counsel Robert Mueller’s
investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign. (It didn’t.)
So it stands to reason that Twitter users less enthralled
with Trump would tweet things about Nunes that were perhaps
less than cordial — like calling him a “presidential
fluffer and swamp rat,” for instance. (In fact, a tweet
using those very words was included in the lawsuit.)
But in the 40-page complaint filed on Monday, Nunes argues that tweets like
that and the two parody Twitter accounts were not merely
examples of Twitter being Twitter. Rather, he argues that the
social media platform served as “a portal of defamation”
by permitting parody accounts of his mother and his imaginary
bovine to exist on the platform.
The operative word, seemingly missed by Nunes
and his lawyer, is "parody." Which, you know, is protected in the United States by the First Amendment and whatnot. Parody and other forms of sometimes unpopular speech are not protected everywhere, of
course. In Russia (to name but one example of other places in the
world where freedom of expression is not exactly a sacred cow), a
person might, thanks to a new law recently signed by Trump's dom
bromantic partner Putin, conceivably be
prosecuted for parody, since it is by its nature disrespectful,
and if your parody or satire disrespects Putin or the Russian
government, well, then, shame on you, Господин or девушка Smarty-Pants.
But the US isn't Russia... not yet, anyway.
Here
is the direct link to the fake farm animal's Twitter account, which has more Twitter followers than the real Devin.
Goodness, that must trample on his ego. If you're on Twitter and
haven't done so already, why not go ahead and follow that cow?
I've herd that she's very nice, the crème de la crème.
Who feels more "hard done by": libs or
cons?
Defamation cases are nearly always about hurt feelings, and a sense of being hard done by, as much as they are
about actual damages. (A tip of the hat to an ancient post on the Kung Fu Monkey blog, which I've cited here before, for the "hard done
by" theme. Ah, "that sweet crack pipe of moral
indignation.") For me, this latest legal looniness brings up
an argument that has been going on for a few years regarding who
is in fact more hypersensitive: liberals/left-wingers or
conservatives/right-wingers. TheTylt.com -- to name but one
of countless examples -- has tackled this matter, running two
surveys that I know of a couple of years ago -- this one and this one. Spoiler: the
right-wingers won the sensitivity sweepstakes both times.
Moreover Trump is apparently making good on the promise/threat that he spewed forth in his recent two-hour-plus rant to the Conservative Political Action
Conference: a vow to sign an executive
order that would punish colleges and universities that "do
not support free speech" by denying them federal research
funds. The initial promise was a direct response to a February
19, 2019 incident on the campus of the University of California
Berkeley in which a man who was not a Berkeley student was on
campus expressing his support of Trump, whereupon another man,
who was not a Berkeley student either, punched him. The punchee,
one Hayden Williams, was paraded around by Trump as a hero at the
CPAC rant, the poster child for liberals' oppression of
conservatives on campus.
Never mind that Berkeley was, in fact, already providing a solid
platform for conservatives and pro-Trumpsters. In this case, the
conservative org Turning Point USA was, with the university's
permission, recruiting students to the cause. And never mind that
many universities already have free-speech guidelines
and policies that allow non-liberal expression on their campuses. Those inconvenient facts didn't stop the right-wing
whining following the punching, and didn't stop Trump from his
subsequent grandstanding.
Also never mind the fact that, according to the Chicago Trib
article I cited a couple of paragraphs ago, "it's unclear
what type of free speech limitation could trigger a loss of
federal research funding. White House officials declined to
provide specific cases of free speech suppression." The
guiding sentiment behind the EO seems to be that by golly, it's
time that someone stepped up and protected (conservative) free
speech!
Here's an opinion piece,
published on March 4, 2019 in the wake of the CPAC rant,
explaining why Trump is missing the point, once again.
...Because almost across the board
institutional missions center on scientific discovery,
knowledge and learning, institutions of higher education are
a key mechanism for fostering democratic education. Campuses often subscribe to John Stuart Mill’s notion that a
university is a “marketplace of ideas,” where educators
offer “balanced perspectives” so that students can “hear
the other side” on every issue.
However, academic freedom guidelines specifically say that
faculty members need not always cover “the other side” if
the standards of the discipline deem that other side to be
untrue. When topics seem to be settled, with a right answer
having emerged through science and ethics, faculty can focus
on the knowledge produced. A white nationalist view, for
example, does not merit debate within the campus marketplace
of ideas.
In the aftermath of the Charlottesville, Va.,
tragedy, these
disagreements have taken on a deeper significance, as those
of us who work within higher education navigate increasingly
polarized contexts for teaching, learning and research.
Public discussions of these issues have been dominated by legal analyses of the First Amendment, without sufficient
attention to philosophical discussion of disagreement, truth
and the democratic purposes of higher education.
College faculty and campus leaders are caught between wanting
to be nonpartisan and promoting their institution’s
missions, which often prioritize excellence and truth...
On the other hand, if colleges and unis are
mandated by executive order or law or whatever to allow free
speech, religious schools such as Liberty University, which also
receives federal research funds, might have to allow satanists
and abortion-rights advocates to speak on their campuses. So
there's that. Could be interesting.
Misusing the courts to capitalize on being hard done
by
It's not unusual for thin-skins who have the resources to try to
use the legal system to fight back against real and imagined
slights, generally via multi-million dollar
"defamation" lawsuits. Trump is one notable and obvious
example; a few of those defamation lawsuits are listed in this article,
though the piece also covers some of his other infamous and
yuuugely expensive legal dramas.
Another recent example is the "Covington kid," the
MAGA-cap-sporting Catholic school student Nicholas Sandmann, whose parents sued the New York Timesfor $250 millionand, more recently, CNN for $275
million, for the news outlets' initial coverage of an incident in
which their kid confronted an elderly Native American activist
and some shouting Black Hebrew Israelite cultists. (Never mind
that the NYT and CNN and most other mainstream outlets revised
their stories as new info came to light.) Part of the plaintiffs'
argument was that the media are biased against Donald Trump and
conservatives. Ah, snowflakes. No two are alike, and yet at some
level they all are.
And now there's Devin and that fake mama and that bogus bovine
and, of course, that very real social media platform, the latter
of whom possesses the actual deep pockets that Devin and his
legal team hope to mine.
If you want a good laugh, read the lawsuit. I have been
trying to find a dowloadable PDF of the document that includes
the filing/court stamps, indicating that it was actually filed
and the date and time that this occurred. The document to which I
linked does not seem to be that, but it was uploaded to Scribd by
Fox News on March 18, and seems to be the reference point for all
of the chatter about it. It begins by trying to lay out the case
that Twitter has been purposely defaming
poor Devin and continues to do so, and that furthermore Twitter has it out for all Republicans.
1. Twitter is an information content
provider. Twitter creates and develops content, in whole or
in part, through a combination of means: (a) by explicit
censorship of viewpoints with which it disagrees, (b) by
shadow-banning conservatives, such as Plaintiff, (c) by
knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly
abusive, hateful and defamatory – providing both a voice
and financial incentive to the defamers – thereby
facilitating defamation on its platform, (d) by completely
ignoring lawful complaints about offensive content and by
allowing that content to remain accessible to the public, and
(e) by intentionally abandoning and refusing to enforce its
so-called Terms of Service and Twitter Rules – essentially
refusing to self-regulate – thereby selectively amplifying
the message of defamers such as Mair, Devin Nunes’ Mom and
Devin Nunes’ cow, and materially contributing to the
libelousness of the hundreds of posts at issue in this
action.
2. Twitter created and developed the content at issue in this
case by transforming false accusations of criminal conduct,
imputed wrongdoing, dishonesty and lack of integrity into a
publicly available commodity used by unscrupulous political
operatives and their donor/clients as a weapon. Twitter knew
the defamation was (and is) happening. Twitter let it happen
because Twitter had (and has) a political agenda and motive:
Twitter allowed (and allows) its platform to serve as a
portal of defamation in order to undermine public confidence
in Plaintiff and to benefit his opponents and opponents of
the Republican Party...
And so on, and so forth, adding up to yet
another fine red whine. Alas, poor Devin, and oh, those poor,
put-upon Republicans.
This bit, which occurs towards the end and wraps up the counts
for which the plaintiff is demanding so much money, made me
chuckle.
COUNT IV – COMMON LAW CONSPIRACY...
... 54. Beginning in February 2018 and continuing through the
present, Mair, Devin Nunes’ Mom and Devin Nunes’ cow,
acting as individuals, combined, associated, agreed or acted
in concert with each other and/or with one or more
“clients” or other donors, non-profits, operatives or
agents of the Democratic Party (whose identity is unknown at
this time) for the express purposes of injuring Nunes,
intentionally and unlawfully interfering with his business
and employment as a United States Congressman, and defaming
Nunes. In furtherance of the conspiracy and preconceived
plan, the Defendants engaged in a joint scheme the unlawful
purpose of which was to destroy Nunes’ personal and
professional reputations and influence the outcome of a
federal election.
Nunes is asking for a minimum of
$250,000,000 for the alleged attempts to destroy his reputation,
but is certainly open to the idea of receiving much more, should
it please the court. On
his monologue on March 19, 2019, Stephen Colbert said that Nunes' legal team came up with that figure by
applying a scientific legal formula: they took the dollar amount
that Nunes' reputation is actually worth, and added $250,000,000
to it. That sounds about right.
Less than 24 hours after being launched, that
account had more than 30,000 followers. And although as of this
writing the account still contains a solitary tweet, the
following is making its way steadily to 44,000.
I am well aware that there is an ongoing debate
about several issues related to social media, and one of these
issues is the question of whether or not platforms such as
Facebook and Twitter are indeed biased against conservatives. A poll taken late last year by
Hill.TV and American Barometer indicated that a majority of American voters
thought that the social media giants have a systemic bias against
conservative views. Unsurprisingly, the poll was heavily divided
along party lines, with Republicans overwhelmingly likely to view
tech companies as being biased against conservatives. Media
bias is a perennial issue that is
worthy of exploration and analysis, but frivolous defamation
lawsuits by whiny politicians and other public figures are not
helpful at all. Conspiranoia strikes deep...again
All of the talk about conspiracy to defame reminds me very much of
another defamation flawsuit from a few years back, one in which I was the top-named defendant. It didn't
make the mainstream news, of course, and was barely a blip in the
blogosphere, but if you think I am going to pass up an
opportunity to sneer about it, you are very much mistaken. As you
may know, the suit did not go very well for the plaintiff, Not-Doktor Leonard Coldwell,
aka LoonyC, the stupidest and most evil man in Scamworld; his
attorneys advised him to drop the case, and he did. Nor did his previous attempt to sue a critical blogger (my pal
and co-defendant in the aforementioned case, Salty Droid) go very
well; his rent-a-lawyer in that one
dropped out of the case early on, and the whole thing was
dismissed because LoonyC never showed up for any hearings. Yet he
has continued to boast about his powerful legal team and about
his steadfast willingness to fight and defeat anyone who dares to
"defame" him.
Arguably the majority of defamation lawsuits fail, at least in
the US. It's complicated, and I don't
claim to be anything remotely resembling an expert on these
matters. But it seems that more than likely, Devin Nunes doesn't have a very strong
case, in part because he is a
politician and a public figure, and America has a long history of
protecting those who make fun of our politicians. Also, Twitter
is merely distributing, not creating, the offending content. But
some have warned that even if Nunes loses the lawsuit and the
probable appeal, he is creating an opening for the Supreme Court
to reconsider its previous rulings on defamation and public
officials. As a lawmaker, Nunes is in a unique position to
introduce legislation that could very well have a chilling effect
that would make Putin proud.
For now, it seems nothing will stop either Nunes or his
detractors from... oh, you knew this was coming, didn't you?...
milking this matter for all it's worth. But it's worth noting
that last year Nunes was a co-sponsor of HR 1179, the
"Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act." Cory Doctorow on Boing-Boing made sport of this (as well as the now-defunct fake-mama Twitter account).
Nunes is upset that he was called a
"herp-face," and is really upset about a human centipede meme that depicted Nunes, Trump and Putin as
generic, labeled stick-figures with their mouths grafted onto
one-another's anuses. This tweet may just be the greatest
exhibit ever filed in a lawsuit.
It's a very good thing to have a little comic
relief in the midst of the horror and chaos that is swirling all
around us, but let's hope that the right-wing snowflakes don't
have the last laugh.
Addendum, 5 April 2019:
Republican strategist Elizabeth "Liz" Mair, who besides
Twitter is actually the main defendant in Nunes' silly complaint,
wrote a serious editorial about the real threats to free speech
for all of us. It was published in USA Today. Here 'tis. Related on this Whirled: Vintage whines from
conservative conspiranoid snowflakes
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