A Dozen Conservative Influencers Depart F-Around Town for Find Out Station
What do you mean defamation isn't legal?
The Poolish is a comedy news and current affairs newsletter by S Peter Davis. My main newsletter Plato Was a Dick is free to read.
A Dozen Conservative Influencers Depart Fuck Around Town for Find Out Station
Mark Bankston is kind of like the Dexter to ambulance chasing lawyers - he only goes after the people who deserve it. If you’re unfamiliar with the name, he’s the guy who convinced a judge to fine Alex Jones the GDP of Argentina for his role in sending legions of sweaty assholes to attack the parents of the Sandy Hook victims.
If you don’t know him for that, you might know him for the recent deposition he subjected Elon Musk to, holding him account for his attempted doxing of someone his worm-eaten brain falsely led him to believe was a CIA agent posing as a Nazi. It’s a long, stupid story, but to cut it short, Musk had essentially no idea where he was or what was happening the whole time—given that he usually just buys his way out of things like this, it was unclear he knew how a deposition even works,
And Elon Musk isn’t the only rich right wing conspiracy ghoul finding out for the first time. Bankston is also representing another client falsely accused of being a Nazi or a CIA agent or something or other by a whole raft of wingnuts including Steven Crowder, Greg Kelly, and Tim Pool.
And again, none of these people seem to understand that defamation is a thing they’re not allowed to do, nor do they know what being sued even is. According to Bankston, Tim Pool doesn’t even think he needs his own lawyer, and can beat a lawsuit just be frowning sternly at it.
It’s a fascinating glimpse into the minds of a whole class of people who don’t believe they have any duty of care whatsoever to avoid harming other human beings in their relentless pursuit of attention and their own amusement—partly because this seems to be literally the first time anyone’s thought about trying to stop them.
We can only hope this might serve as a forehead-slapping moment for other people on the receiving end of a millionaire’s fun and games that these people are, technically, supposed to be subject to the law.