I think you’re trying to make a case that the New York Times story could reasonably be construed as libel, given some theory of the transitive property of libel (?). What I’m saying is that I don’t think such a claim is plausible regarding this specific case.
Not sure that’s the fairest way to describe it. The debates were being run by the League of Women Voters and the parties had already decided to hijack the process with their bipartisan Commission when Carter refused their setup. I don’t see what makes it a quasi-official ruling body. It’s more of a negotiating body between the two major parties.
Kayleigh McEnany just did.
No, what I am saying is that the New York Times’s valid defense is that under libel law as applied to public figures, this is not libel.
If it had been libel, (say, for example, if Trump had not been a public figure) then the Times could not defend itself by saying “she’s the one who said it!”
That’s not because there’s a “transitive property of libel,” but because the Times published the libel. If it appears in an article published by the Times, then the Times is the publisher/speaker of the defamatory statement, even if it’s in quotation marks. Attributing it to someone else is not a defense.
According to one of the 538 guys in the live chat during the debate, there might be some truth to this. He mentioned that Bill Clinton used this technique of putting himself between the camera and his opponent during debates so that the camera might catch the other person doing odd stuff while they thought they were off camera.
He’s saying reasonable things in a completely insane fashion, and expecting us to agree without argument that good ideas are utterly reprehensible.
It’s further evidence the old-fashioned Moral Majority isn’t living in the same Universe as the rest of us. First, we have their complete collapse on the issue of gay marriage, an issue they have yet to come up with a single argument against which is even minimally acceptable (or even comprehensible) if you don’t already agree with them, and now they’re going to be loudly and angrily confused about why nobody else buys into their utterly, reprehensibly insane views on sexual consent and sexual violence.
This is it. This is where they put all their ideas out in the open, expecting everyone already agrees with them, and self-marginalize so far they begin to fade out of politics. It might not happen quickly, but it is going to happen.
Um… yeah, sounds about right. 
Limbaugh seems to be declaring that a consensual three-way or four-way is worse than nonconsensual sex involving two people.
The “rape police”? Isn’t that, you know, just the “police”?
Goodness, but that 538 map is becoming more and more beautiful by the moment. A solidly blue Colorado stands astride the electoral breakpoint. Frigging AZ is the lightest of blues. States like Texas and Montana are no longer brick red.
Good lord, I can’t get too excited this early…
I’m hoping Hillary keeps repeating the “They go low, we go high” mantra. Stop responding about the e-mails, and let her minions continue the personal pile-on. Send Bill to a private golf course somewhere for the duration. Hammer her awareness of national and world events, and her reasonable approach towards them. Add in some small measure of bullshit feelgood crap will appeal to idiots who want a likeable president they think they can relate to and would like to have a beer with.
The Dem party should assume a 4-yr horizon. Make as many gains as possible at the state/local level over the next 4 yrs before redistricting in 2020, and position themselves for the most possible gains in the midterms. Every fucker who did not immediately distance themselves from Trump, should be forever associated with him in subsequent elections.
And yeah, she should be a rock in the 3d debate. As someone suggested, ignoring Trump, sticking to the issues, and emphasizing her blatant competence will put a nice bow on this.
This is exactly what a whole generation is going to think. Complete with the confused expression. There are a non-trivial number of people who simply cannot comprehend what that man just said because their entire moral Universe is founded on a different basis.
This is a generation gap. It’s when two generations cannot communicate because they no longer have enough in common to process the ideas of the people on the other side.
That’s what his side of the gap believes. I’m just barely old enough, I believe, to already know their arguments at an intellectual level, but I don’t really get it, either.
Not to keep bashing on Elendil’s Heir for what was probably an off-the-cuff remark, but I think this development is worth pointing out again:
This is why many women don’t “come forward” with accusations of sexual assault unless they have good reason to believe that literally millions of other people will have their back.
What the Hell happened to him? Wasn’t Dobbs a respected newsman at some point in the past?
It’s so hard to fathom the thought process of someone doing something like this. Does he believe that his action makes him, what, noble? Righteous? The Hand of God?
In re all of Trump’s accusers:
EVERY Trump surrogate needs to be confronted with Kellyanne Conway’s now-infamous Tweet
…and asked if they agree or disagree with her. Not one of them will be willing to be pinned down–but it needs to be put on the record that not one of them will answer the question.
(Further down the page is a photo worth a look: it’s all the Trump women (Melania, the daughters, and the daughters-in-law) standing in the exact same pose, with relevance to Trump’s “p”-grabbing proclivities.)
he went down hill on the obama birther thing. it was rather astonishing. cnn had to let him go and he went to fox.
Sometimes. He now seems to have become pretty much a single-issue xenophobe, with all the crazy and hypocritical that entails.
My life is complete.
Katy Tur of NBC News, lead Trump pool reporter and a favorite guest of the MSNBC nightly lineup just liked a tweet of mine. Take that, Jon Favreau. 
It’s his decision to go against the advice of his advisors and use Bill’s past sexcapades as a campaign issue that led to his nightmare now.
Katrina Pierson says that no groping occurred because there are fixed seats in first class.
Uh…yeah.
It’s like he gives a textbook definition of rape, but with a tone that implies that it’s some weird modern liberal idea.