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Jesse Ventura: Don’t feel sorry for Chris Kyle’s widow, I’m the victim here
Hot Air ^ | July 30, 2014 | Noah Rothman

Posted on 07/30/2014 10:29:19 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Jesse Ventura, Minnesota’s former governor, won his lawsuit against the late Navy SEAL and American Sniper author Chris Kyle on Tuesday. He claimed he was defamed in that book and, while a jury agreed, the vainglorious former wrestler-turned-politician-turned-conspiracy-buff has not exactly comported himself in a fashion that elicits much sympathy.

After having been awarded nearly $2 million to be paid by the late serviceman’s widow, one might assume that Ventura would simply slip away and enjoy his victory. It seems, however, Ventura’s narcissism prevented him from taking the tasteful approach here.

In an appearance on CBS News’ This Morning on Wednesday, Ventura engaged in an amateurish attempt to manipulate your emotions by simply insisting rather forcefully that you should not feel sorry for the women who lost her husband to an assassin’s bullet who now has to pay millions to a professional self-promoter with a tenuous grasp on reality. Instead, Ventura insisted that he is the victim here.

“Taya Kyle had all her attorney fees paid by insurance,” Ventura noted. “I did not.”

“I’m already damaged,” Ventura said when asked if he had hurt his reputation by seeking restitution even after Kyle’s death. “I can’t go to a SEAL reunion anymore. That was the one place where I always felt safe. I can’t go there anymore without looking over my shoulder now wondering who is going to come after me next.”

After seeking sympathy for the consequences of his own actions, Ventura reassured the audience that he has not emerged from this episode “unscathed.”

Lacking any empathy or courtesy, Ventura was asked what he planned to do with the winnings after noting that they come at the expense of a widow with two children. “Pay my lawyers,” Ventura said. His response was met with a shocked pause. “I didn’t have an insurance company paying the freight for me. I had to pay my own.”

Finally, Ventura promised the CBS hosts that his crusade to further damage his already shoddy reputation would not end here. Asked if he planned any future legal action around this defamation issue, Ventura promised to “visit” HarperCollins – the publisher of American Sniper – presumably to seek further damages over what he alleged and a jury agreed was an unfounded claim.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)

What a small man.


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Military/Veterans; Society; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: chriskyle; jesseventura; navy; seals; ventura
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To: Usagi_yo

He sued an American hero over a pathetically small issue that nobody believes him on anyway.


41 posted on 07/31/2014 2:48:44 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: Usagi_yo

Jesse isn’t mentioned by name in the book.


42 posted on 07/31/2014 2:50:09 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: Ethan Clive Osgoode

Quote from a Fox Article ....

“Legal experts said before the trial Ventura had to clear a high legal bar to win.”

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/07/29/jury-awards-ventura-18m-in-defamation-case-against-american-sniper-estate/?intcmp=latestnews&intcmp=features

I guess he cleared that “high legal bar”.


43 posted on 07/31/2014 3:17:17 AM PDT by Usagi_yo
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To: Usagi_yo

He’s a twit, always has been.

The justice system is not justice, most people realize that. One person slips on a wet floor, gets up, walks away, and forgets it. Another falls under the exact same circumstances and collects $100k via the justice system.

People abuse the legal system, just as they abuse anything else. Ventura is a small, small man, who obviously has no shame.

U.S. Courts are not magical impartial justice dispensers. When a decision renders what is just, I praise it. When a decision is unjust, I criticize it.


44 posted on 07/31/2014 3:28:33 AM PDT by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Jesse was not in that bar. He stopped drinking years before. Jesse had the the right to defend himself. Careful who you pick as a hero in life. Chris may have kill a lot of the enemy but he lied in a book for something to talk about on TV. That is the truth but all the emotion created by the media has clouded thinking. Jesse was right and Chris was wrong.


45 posted on 07/31/2014 3:32:22 AM PDT by bmwcyle (People who do not study history are destine to believe really ignorant statements.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Almost all such lawsuits are frivolous (even if the greedy parasite wins, it can be frivolous and in this case it was). A lawsuit against an American hero’s widow is particularly disgusting. Anyone who doesn’t find Jesse Ventura revolting just isn’t paying attention.


46 posted on 07/31/2014 3:59:18 AM PDT by Pollster1 ("Shall not be infringed" is unambiguous.)
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To: piytar

Wish you were right about just being feces—but even feces can be useful as compost or night soil fertilizer. This worthless conspiracy poison spewing is not worth of even being compared to feces. I’ve know a few real seals over the years and he is not one.


47 posted on 07/31/2014 4:00:17 AM PDT by BTCM (Death and destruction is the only treaty Muslims comprehend.)
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To: TigersEye
Ventura is a first class douche bag and a liar. Not to mention a fruitcake.

You could extend this to most of the jury in this case as well.

48 posted on 07/31/2014 4:04:22 AM PDT by tbpiper
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To: SampleMan

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3187156/posts

BTW who gets to pick and choose. Who decides if it was a scam or for real?


49 posted on 07/31/2014 4:09:05 AM PDT by Usagi_yo
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Jesse Ventura is an anti American 911 conspiratorial scumbag. Anyone who likes him is basically the same kind of subhuman. Look up his quotes. And they aren’t fabricated. They are on video, straight out of his pathetic mouth.


50 posted on 07/31/2014 4:46:42 AM PDT by nhwingut (This tagline for lease)
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To: blueplum

There was an article which said there were 11 witnesses backing up Kyle’s account. If true, someone dropped the ball if 8 jurors voted in favor of the diver who claims to be a SEAL.


51 posted on 07/31/2014 4:55:52 AM PDT by Protect the Bill of Rights
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To: Usagi_yo
From what I can tell, somebody slandered Jesse Ventura under the pretext to profit from book sales that resulted in increased book sales and rendering Jesse a pariah among’st his peers.

I don't know if the punch ever happened or if Kyle mistook what Ventura said or if Ventura actually did say those awful things.

His beef was with Chris Kyle, not his widow.

The right thing to do when Kyle was murdered was to issue a statement saying that he stands by his claim that it didn't happen the way Kyle said it did, but that the lawsuit is retracted because going after widows and orphans is wrong for decent men to do.

Heck, even the mafia doesn't go after wives and kids.

52 posted on 07/31/2014 4:57:28 AM PDT by EricT. (Everything not forbidden is compulsory.)
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To: ozzymandus
"What a pig. Was Ventura really a SEAL, or a Navy frogman?"

Ventura was a UDT frogman, he was never a Navy SEAL for one minute in his life. In the early 1970s, both future UDTers and future SEALs attended 6 months of Basic Underwater Demolition / SEAL Training in Coronado, CA.

But after that, graduating tadpoles were sent to either a UDT or a SEAL Team. UDTers had the 5321 designator, SEALs had the 5326 designator. At the time that Ventura was a UDT man, SEALs were in combat in Vietnam, and UDTs were not.

By the 1980s, NavSpecWar planned to merge them and the UDTs became SEAL Teams. This happened when I was in Beirut. I went out with the last deploying platoon from UDT-21, and we became the first deployed SEAL Team 4 platoon in Beirut in 1983.

Ventura can call himself a "UDT-SEAL" but he was never a SEAL, 5326, for one day in his life. To be a SEAL, a BUD/S graduate had to be assigned to a SEAL Team, go through their advanced operator training (it was called SBI when I did it in 1980 at ST-2), go on a successful platoon deployment, and get through a 6-month probationary period.

Ventura did none of those things. He was a UDT man in the early 1970s, nothing wrong with that, and he is a member of the UDT/SEAL community, but he was NEVER a SEAL.

53 posted on 07/31/2014 5:05:36 AM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Usagi_yo
BTW who gets to pick and choose. Who decides if it was a scam or for real?

When I pass judgment on what is right and wrong, I get to choose. When my judgment is ultimately questioned, God gets to choose.

I presume that your underlying point is that justice isn't what people should concern themselves with, but rather we should all just be happy to agree on a common form of decision making and then pretend that what results is justice.

The travesty is that there is nothing common about it. Because civil suits allow emotional pleas, you get emotional results. When a grifter sues a grocery store, it is almost guaranteed that the grocery store owner will not have any business owners on the jury. When there is a high likelihood that a different jury or judge would have resulted in a different ruling, then what we have is an arbitrary system, that we pretend is confined by law.

54 posted on 07/31/2014 5:06:32 AM PDT by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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To: Dan Cooper

That fight did happen. Jesse shot his mouth off to the wrong people and got his clock cleaned. Other SEALS saw it but was deep in their cups.
Jesse’s fight was with Kyle, not his family. After Kyle was killed helping a fellow vet overcome his PTSD, Jesse should have let the whole subject die. But since “the Brain” has a ego that’s bigger than his IQ, went after a dead man family. Now he is shunned by other SEALs and to me, that’s a death without dying.


55 posted on 07/31/2014 5:35:58 AM PDT by Yorlik803 ( Church/Caboose in 2016)
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To: Travis McGee

I’ve posted this before, but ff the SEALs thought he was misrepresenting himself, he never would have been allowed to attend their reunions, much less given an award at one or invited to be the guest speaker at a BUD/S graudtion ceremony as he was.

Here’s what Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL who has no fondness for Ventura, said. I can find plenty of other similar statements by former SEALS:

I’ve heard the speculation and gossip about Jesse Ventura’s Navy SEAL status and wanted to set the record straight. Jesse Ventura graduated with Basic Underwater Demolition Class 58 and, like it or not, he earned his status. Some say he’s a UDT (Underwater Demolition Team), and not a “SEAL,” but that’s bullshit.

Others have seen the flaw in this analogy, and mentioned in private SEAL forums, “try telling that to a WWII UDT veteran who swam ashore before the landing craft on D-Day.” The UDT’s and SEALs are essentially one and the same. It’s why the UDT is still part of the training acronym BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL).

Like it or not, Jesse Ventura is a Navy SEAL. He did the pushups and put up with the cold water, just like the rest of us


56 posted on 07/31/2014 5:51:26 AM PDT by GrootheWanderer
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To: Protect the Bill of Rights

Kyle’s witnesses contradicted each other and Kyle. All had been drinking, some very heavily. And only one of them claimed to have seen the whole incident.

What really hurt Kyle was his own deposition, which was videotaped before he died. He was forced to admit that parts of his story were not true. I think a jury could reasonably conclude that if parts of it weren’t true, none of it was.

His widow’s testimony also did not help. They presented statements from Kyle and his publisher that all of the proceeds going from the book would be donated to veterans charity, and statements from Kyle talking about how much he’d already given. She admitted that wasn’t true, but said they’d planned to give away all the money but just hadn’t gotten around to it.


57 posted on 07/31/2014 5:56:18 AM PDT by GrootheWanderer
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To: Travis McGee

Yet he continually calls himself one as does the lame, can’t be bothered to work and research it media...
So we’ve got a jerk face, self-promoting anti-America liar on one hand...
And a murdered SEAL sniper hero who put his life on the line for us on the other...
And who does a MN jury believe?
I know who I believe...


58 posted on 07/31/2014 6:37:23 AM PDT by matginzac
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To: TigersEye

Two words for Jesse......Summer’s Eve.


59 posted on 07/31/2014 6:42:20 AM PDT by PhiloBedo (You gotta roll with the punches and get with what's real.)
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To: Usagi_yo

Are you a Muslim Lawyer or just support them?


60 posted on 07/31/2014 6:59:01 AM PDT by BTCM (Death and destruction is the only treaty Muslims comprehend.)
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