The Covington Catholic Kids Take the Gloves Off

theamericanconservative.com ^ | Grayson Quay

[RoosterRedux]

Between the total collapse of the Covington Catholic story and the embarrassment of the Jussie Smollett hate hoax, 2019 has been a rough year for America’s embattled mainstream media.

Now, the hostility toward these supposed guardians of democracy that provided some of the energy behind Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign is about to get its day in court. Nick Sandmann, the 16-year-old Covington student who was accused of willfully intimidating the Native American activist Nathan Phillips at this year’s March for Life, has filed a defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post, requesting $250 million in damages.

The court filing, which is available online, is a fascinating read. My first question was how Sandmann’s lawyers came up with the figure of a quarter of a billion dollars, and the document duly provided an answer: it is “the amount Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, paid in cash for the Post…in 2013.” This lawsuit is not about Sandmann’s lost opportunities or mental anguish. It’s about “punish[ing], deter[ring], and teach[ing] the Post a lesson it will never forget.” That kind of rhetorical melodrama seems aimed at journalists, not judges. The goal, quite literally, is to take the paper for everything it’s worth, and make a big splash doing so.

Nor does the combative language end there. Sandmann’s attorneys accuse the Post of “wrongfully placing the anti-Trump, anti-Catholic, and [pro-choice] agenda over the harm its False and Defamatory Accusations caused to Nicholas” and of ignoring “contrary information in favor of its pre-conceived false narrative against President Trump and his supporters.” Sandmann’s name might be at the top of the complaint, but the attorneys who authored it clearly imagine their lawsuit is carrying the banner for every single victim of anti-MAGA discrimination.

[M Kehoe]

It would be poetic justice if Sandmann eventually owned the Compost.

5.56mm

[aimhigh]

My concern is: what happens if the kids lose? The press would then declare all out war on conservatives, with lie after lie. Remember, Zimmerman lost his suit against NBC.

[1Old Pro]

My money is on either a) a biased partisan judge derails the whole thing; or b) there is a quiet settlement which bars anyone from speaking about the matter ever again (IOW, a bribe to shut up and go away) We all wish courts were impartial, but they are not; and entities like the Post which have powerful friends in the DC establishment, are seldom required to answer for their deeds.

I fear you may be correct.

[GOPJ]

Kentucky?

[GOPJ]

The kid was waiting for a bus to take him and his fellow schoolmates home.

Chief Ten Teeth and a gang of black haters attacked the kids with shouted obscenities and threats of violence.

Then the sickos in the 'press' piled on to attack the children.

The kid was NOT a public figure. He did NOT attack back. He did NOT deserve the score of the rabid haters at the Washington Post.

++++++++++++ If the situation had been reversed...

Say a Black Lives Matter protest had happened and some black children (who had attended were waiting for a bus to take them home) were confronted with a gun rights group shouting obscenities at the black girls... and a MAGA Hat guy walks over to the girls and starts banging a drum 5 inches from her face - DOES ANYONE THINK THE THUGS AT THE WASHINGTON POST WOULD TRASH THE YOUNG BLACK GIRLS?

The Washington Post crossed the line because their hatred of half the people in the United States has rotted out their brains. They are biased jerks who push an agenda - the Washington Post has thrown away their credibility - and they're attempting to throw away the credibility of the whole profession. The KID was NOT a public figure. He was NOT doing ANYTHING but waiting for the bus. Press haters went to far this time.

[bert]

The lawsuit was I believe filed in Kentucky

[bert]

-——The KY laws on defamation are VERY much in Sandmann’s favor.-——

For the Record.......
If the suit is filed in Federal court, Federal law must be the basis, not Kentucky law

At Holiday Inn last week I thought about being a lawyer

[Qiviut]

Thanks - I’d only heard the defamation case described in terms of the favorable KY laws.

I went back & looked at the actual lawsuit - the attorneys are making the case for “False and Defamatory Accusations with actual malice and common law malice”

There’s plenty of “negligently and recklessly” mentioned as well.