PayPal co-founder and tech billionaire Peter Thiel on Monday offered a jaw-dropping defense of his decision to bankroll wrestling icon Hulk Hogan’s invasion of privacy lawsuit against Gawker for publishing a sex tape featuring him.
“If you’re a single-digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system,” he said. “It costs too much. This was the modus operandi of Gawker in large part it was to go after people who had no chance of fighting back.”
The declaration came as Thiel was speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to tout the presidential bid of GOP candidate Donald Trump.
Thiel spent at least $10 million supporting Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker. Thiel had been engaged in a personal feud with the website for years. As a result of the lawsuit, Gawker was driven out of business.
Fordham Law School professor and criminal justice expert John Pfaff was quick to note that in 2007, many states’ entire budgets for indigent defense — money allotted to provide legal counsel to those who cannot afford it — is in the single-digit millions.
1. As of 2007, four states’ ENTIRE INDIGENT DEFENSE BUDGET were “single-digit millionaires.”
Maine: $9.6M
ND: $5M
SD: $8.8M
WY: $8.9M https://t.co/Q2yJcLZcmX— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) October 31, 2016
Pfaff then went on to note that all states combined spent $4.5 billion on indigent defense in 2007, noting that someone of Thiel’s net worth could increase that total by 50 percent if he wanted to support people who actually lack legal representation. He also cited Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos as another billionaire who could effectively bankroll the entire indigent defense system:
4. States spent $4.5B on indigent defense in 2007. Thiel alone could increase that by 50%. Bezos could pay for it all out of pocket. pic.twitter.com/kYPbhbGPRj
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) October 31, 2016
(Disclosure: First Look Media Works, The Intercept’s parent company, supported Gawker in its legal battle with Hogan.)
Top photo: Peter Thiel at the National Press Club on Oct. 31.
Frivolous lawsuits are expensive and should stay that way. The Hogan case was dead and should have stayed dead. Reminds me of a “property damage” case brought by David Geffen. His attorneys won $10mil from his LA neighbors because they trimmed his trees. A case only a rich man could underwrite, a result only a brilliant firm could achieve. Abuse of our legal system. Absurd redistribution of wealth. Inane damages. A jury wowed by a brilliant firm and a celebrity.
Good lawsuits are affordable for all. It’s called a contingency fee. How Theil can say this stuff without laughing amazes me. Of course, he’s a smooth dude. Truly disturbing? The media politely taking it all in. Americans buying it all. Excellent Sheep on crack.
What a disgusting comment on Thiel’s part. he’s socially tone deaf, and he really needs a husband to tone down the worst parts of his personality.
“…liberty and justice for all” has always been a cynical sound bite.
Sometimes the public defense attorney is the only honourable attorney in the courtroom.
“Peter Thiel is right. Even the single-digit millionaire can’t usually afford a complicated, protracted lawsuit in a modern American court. While much attention is (properly) paid to what this means in the criminal law context, there is also an ocean of injustice on the civil side.”
These words of Mona’s are going to get lost in the comments deluge, and they need to be seen. A single-digit millionaire in the U.S. today is middle class. Real middle class, as the term was understood 2 centuries ago, when the bourgeoisie of France destroyed an aristocracy.
Most of our so-called national middle class is actually a paycheck-to-paycheck surviving working class, we just pretend otherwise. The real American middle class lives very well today………….. as long as they don’t get real sick, or act up against the established elite. Or think about how they’ll make it when they are too old to continue with employment, given the inadequacy of their 401(k)s.
When any of these things happen they are driven down into penury easily, swiftly, and without recourse. It just takes 3-4 years instead of 3-4 weeks.
Fluffy, In my experience, so true. I was a ski instructor who passed out a living wage flyer that encouraged unionization at my company in Aspen Snowmass. On the day I passed out the flyer in 2010, the company banned me from all company property, including national forest—public land.
Naturally, being an American, I sued them for violating the public’s right to free speech. The company is owned by a billionaire from Chicago named Lester Crown. It’s still without a trial date…. and since I sued Aspen Skiing, I have become the defendant four times.
Google Mulcahy Aspen Skiing
“Naturally being an American…” has tickled me something fierce this morning. Well done in substance and style, the both of you above.
As fear meanders it occasionally grips tight in the belly and encourages folks to comfortably accept the narrative, as it is safer, moral, divine and ultimately regard it as purest in spirit.
There have been far too many concessions but maybe it’s nudging it way back. Optimistic. Forward.
(Didn’t complete that post . . . screen moved, clicked wrong link.)
system.
Ah, never mind.
Already had a virus this week, and it’s only Tuesday. Hate tech, really do.
I’m surprised at the criticisms of this article that I’m seeing here.
The larger point was to compare the money donated by billionaires to things like civil suits for the defense of reputation and for damages for emotional distress, compared with the entire budget of various public defenders, who are charged with defending people’s freedom, and sometimes their lives. Surely Hulk Hogan’s harm, while significant, is not all that serious compared to losing one’s liberty.
There is no meaningful right to trial any more. The plea bargaining system is akin to a game like Prisoners’ Dilemma. Tech billionaires like Thiel could afford to subsidize the entire
The reality: The court systems are now monopolized by the bar.
What, EXACTLY, does an attorney do for a living? ANSWER: He plays Scrabble for a living. He argues about the existence of words. He argues about the definitions of words. He argues. He argues about arguing. He argues about how to argue about arguing.
How much does that cost?
What’s the alternative? A 50-Cal round costs about $1 in bulk. The world will figure that out sooner than we think.
There was a lot more contriversial content in this recently uploaded speech/talk
High ranking capitalist claiming to support libertarian ideology
Co-founded palantir company that the intelligence community, Banks, and local governments use to analyze personal data
Hard advocate for monopolies and not so big of anonymity
I am convinced Mona is a bot unleashed into the comments section of The Intercept.
No human being has the time or inclination to comment extensively on ever article printed on this site.
Oh heck, I don’t comment on most articles. It generally has to be something I feel strongly about. And sometimes, like with the prison pieces, there’s just not much to say except “good job.”
Ever since Glenn Greenwald began blogging in ’05 a core group of us used his comments to post links to other interesting and informative posts and articles. A lot of the oldtimers have moved on (many to, ahem, Twitter) but I’m still hanging out and still posting lots of links.
Mona’s no bot. Just committed to a cause. You might as well accuse me of being a bot as well given the amount of time I’ve spent on FB and other online comment sections defending Jill Stein and the Green Party.
It’s called being retired.
Use to be being a millionaire counted for something and a public official scheming a “mill” was a big deal. Guess the scale has been tipped upwards to the masters of the universe. We need a new, New Deal, that will sadly only be delivered through planning after disaster, not before. Only a matter of time, neither presidential candidate is FDR.
>>> Use to be being a millionaire counted for something and a public official scheming a “mill” was a big deal. <<<
How did that change?
Easy. Killed JFK, started a war, and robbed the entire American population of its gold and silver coinage.
A millionaire in 1964 had 1 million silver (or gold) coins.
Now you have cupronickel coins (copper and nickel). These were counterfeit coins until 1965. — OR ONLY PAPER (since there is no guarantee that you'll even get cupronickel coins, either)
In 1965, all non-bankers took a 97% paycut.
Slavery was reintroduced.
Atlas Shrugged… Ayn Rand:
"“Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’
“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded.
Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world? You are."
There is a movement afoot to make it possible to invest in lawsuits. It is already happening at one level, but we’re talking a actual market, like a stock market centered around lawsuits. Also, you can file suit as an investor to “Greenmail” corporations. I’d like to see some class actions lawsuits aimed at fixing some of our privacy issues. That seems to be the only thing corporations understand. (What they really hate is the discovery process.)
For example, my pet peeve these days is that I want major ISPs to offer VPN service to their customers. As a shareholder you could argue that they are leaving money on the table that could be in your pocket. Is that worth suing over? Could be. Maybe. What would Carl Icahn do?
So, I guess where we are heading is a private equity fund used as a social/legal battering ram to punish bad corporate behavior and promote good corporate behavior. Therefore, the thing to do is to get a startup going, solicit a few angel investors and begin smiting the wicked.
Mission Statement: Our Business Model Is To Win.
BTW, no mention is made in the article of what Gawker actually did to get itself sued or to annoy Thiel.
There is a big problem with that. There are some cool old legal terms called champerty and maintenance. Champerty involves aiding someone in a lawsuit with a view to share in the proceeds. Maintenance involves paying for a lawsuit. It’s still illegal in some jurisdictions, TBMK. The concepts are valid, but do need some work to ensure that people can assist in filing lawsuits.
Although I am also baffeled by the apparent lack of perspective that the quote demonstrates, this kind of twitter-“reporting” is what I had hoped The Intercept would steer clear from. It also has absolutely nothing to do with Trump.
That’s a pretty blinkered position. Like it or not, Twitter and other social media are an important venue that has en enormous impact on politics, and is used by movements and political people all over the globe to great effect.
Reporting on what movers and shakers state on Twitter is as important as reporting on anyplace else — more than some. Journalists properly address what happens on social media for the same reasons regimes from Israel to China try to censor it.
It’s obvious what Thiel is saying: the legal system is so skewed against those who are not ultra rich, that even “single digit millionaires” are unable to obtain fair access to and redress by it.
Very true in my experience. The case below is still in play, but without any discovery allowed so far—-much less, a court date for a jury trial.
Crown family brought into feud between Aspen Skiing Co., Lee Mulcahy
Article
Comments (11)
A former Aspen Skiing Co. instructor who is engaged in a running feud with his ex-employer made progress last week getting billionaires Skico Managing Directors Jim Crown and his wife, Paula, added to a civil lawsuit.
Lee Mulcahy sued the Crowns and Aspen Skiing Co. on April 16, 2012, but he was never able to serve the Crowns with the lawsuit. Mulcahy, who is representing himself in the legal matter, filed a motion on July 29, asking a judge to allow him to serve the Crowns in alternative ways rather than having someone hand them the lawsuit directly.
Pitkin County District Judge Daniel Petre last week approved Mulcahy’s motion for substituted service of process upon the Crowns.
“Submissions by Mr. Mulcahy, including an affidavit, demonstrate that he has made substantial efforts to personally serve process and subpoenas upon the Crowns in this matter,” Petre wrote in his Dec. 2 order. “Service has been attempted at personal and business addresses in both Aspen, Colorado, and Chicago, Illinois, but those efforts have been futile.”
Petre said Mulcahy had achieved due diligence in trying to serve the notice of litigation. He also found it was legitimate to serve Jim and Paula Crown as representatives of the family that owns Skico. “On the record before it, it appears that one or both of them own all, or a substantial interest in, ASC,” the order said. “As a result, the Chief Executive Officer of ASC, Mike Kaplan, is an appropriate person to receive personal service on behalf of the Crowns.”
The judge gave Mulcahy until Dec. 5 to try to serve the Crowns by sending them his legal complaint by regular mail to their last-known residential address, to their last-known business address, to any current residential address provided by the Skico attorney and by personal service on Kaplan.
Mulcahy didn’t return a telephone message from The Aspen Times on Tuesday for comment on whether he achieved those methods of service.
Earlier in the process, Mulcahy served Kaplan with the lawsuit by having his father, Bud Mulcahy, hand the document to Kaplan at the end of a Pitkin County commissioners meeting. Kaplan attended the Skico’s annual fall briefing of the county commissioners on issues of interest. Bud Mulcahy sat through the presentation, then approached Kaplan after it was finished and handed him the lawsuit. Kaplan was served as CEO of Skico.
Petre gave the Crowns 35 days from the filing of a certificate of service to respond to Mulcahy’s lawsuit.
Skico attorney Edward Ramey argued against the substituted service. His motion said Mulcahy didn’t demonstrate that he made a bona fide effort to serve the Crowns.
Ramey also argued that Skico was the only entity that should be involved in the case because any potential remedial action would have to be taken by the company, not the Crowns.
“James and Paula Crown have simply been alleged to be ‘owners’ — in fact incorrect — or (with regard to James Crown) a managing director of Ski Co,” Skico’s attorney wrote. “This is little different from naming and attempting to serve the individual officers, members of the Board of Directors, or shareholders of Microsoft to address an action taken by Microsoft.”
Ramey said Tuesday that the Crowns wouldn’t necessarily be parties to the lawsuit even if they are served. Their attorney could file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against them on grounds that there are no claims against them.
Mulcahy filed the lawsuit to seek declaratory and injunctive relief from Skico and the Crowns over Skico’s alleged violation of his right to free speech. Mulcahy was a top-rated ski instructor who got into a fight with Skico brass. He claimed Skico retaliated against him after he explored creating a union for ski instructors and complained about the wages of entry-level workers. Skico said Mulcahy’s performance was the issue.
He was suspended on Dec. 30, 2010, and banned from Skico property after he handed out leaflets promoting unionization for Skico employees. Skico told him the firm would pursue criminal trespass charges if he entered its property, including the land it leases in national forest area.
Mulcahy responded that the ban for handing out leaflets violated his right to free speech and violated the National Labor Relations Act. Skico denies it violated his rights.
Mulcahy was fired Jan. 27, 2011.
He is asking a judge to rule that Skico cannot ban him from its property and award him one dollar in punitive damages plus legal fees and costs.
While serving as his own attorney, some of Mulcahy’s motions are sprinkled with colorful wording rarely seen in legal documents.
“Few, if any, private entities in modern times have established a fiefdom such as is overseen by Skico,” Mulcahy wrote in one motion.
He later added, “Nor has any modern private entity evidenced the hubris of Skico in trying to make an example of Plaintiff, a bible-studying Eagle Scout who actively manages charitable missions to dig water wells in Africa, by publicly threatening criminal prosecution should he inadvertently cross unmarked lines running throughout Aspen and thousands of acres of surrounding forest land, the location of which are known only to Skico, as retaliation for Plaintiff’s turning to State and Federal agencies to force Defendant to comply with federal and state labor laws, and/or promoting unionization of Skico employees.”
Ramey said no trial date has been set yet. “Everything is on hold until we determine if the Crowns are in or out of the case,” he said.
scondon@aspentimes.com
It’s not that they can’ access the system ludo, access is not the problem. The real problem is that the public hasn’t figured out that lawyers are highly paid clowns, who have designed a system whereby they can proudly argue that black is really white on Monday and that white is black on Tuesday, using the same law. And throughout this farce, you have another lawyer, in robes, sitting above this circus and solemnly intoning “Sustained” or “Overruled” every once in a while to give the proceedings some semblance of order and to keep from nodding off. The law in America is a farce and its practitioners are in fact, imposters, manipulators of words, expert in the distortion of their meaning who are entirely responsible for the low esteem of the public towards their craft. These largely unaccountable purveyors of BS have imposed a silent tyranny on the American people that intrudes into every aspect of human endeavor, from birth to death and claim the chaos they’ve created is but the law in motion. The world will know peace “when the last lawyer is hung by the entrails of the last priest” and no sooner.
Thiel’s whining abut poor Hulk Hogan doesn’t get to the half of it. When I practiced law in New York City I ran into a horrible scam the large cable companies were running on mom and pop businesses. A scam they perpetrated after buying the right legislation from Congress.
They’d send out armies of PIs on nights when pay-per-view boxing or other event was airing, and very often — based on a one-page, boilerplate affidavit from the PI — they’d threaten to sue these small businesspeople for over $100k for “pirating” the show.
They’d send a demand letter, announcing they’d settle for $7500, accompanied by a lot of dire talk abut how expensive it is to defend a lawsuit in federal court. For the cable lobby had bought itself an absurd federal statute with high damages allowed, and an award of attorney fees for the winning plaintiff — a very unusual thing in U.S. law.
If you are Greek Guy who owns a Brooklyn diner and you are sued by Time-Warner, even if the PI is lying you are going to have to pay this extortion. Because you can’t afford the litigation. And if you try to fight it pro se and lose, then you hAve to pay this corporate giant’s attorney fees as well.
I researched it, and this was going on in major major cities all over the U.S. Many small businesses — bars, delis and the like — where the owner absolutely swore s/he simply did not steal the show. And was very, very angry at what they saw as a total scam. Which it was. Many of these small businesses were innocent and the PIs were lying, which was certainly obvious to anyone with two IQ points, including the cable companies.
Peter Thiel is right. Even the single-digit millionaire can’t usually afford a complicated, protracted lawsuit in a modern American court. While much attention is (properly) paid to what this means in the criminal law context, there is also an ocean of injustice on the civil side.
@-Mona-
“Stan is a very unfortunate person, one who is almost certainly mentally ill. ”
And here’s -Mona- earlier today:
Not that it matters much these days at TI; the Hackey super-tweetblog says it all.
You are an antisemite and crank. Not unusually for you, the above is a non sequitur; the juxtaposition makes no point. That, however, assists my policy of substantively ignoring you.
“You are an antisemite and crank. ”
Your standard retort when confronted with your own words.
No wonder you are a “wretched liar”.
Girl can’t help it. She just can’t help it.
Who is flinging what now. -Mona- seems to meet her own definition of banishment …
I get it now. Oh cow shit, as the name goes
Nuf, you are literally making no sense. You have to stop starting new threads that mean nothing and just continue your rants whatever bizarre issues you have with me.
Keep it in one thread, one sub-thread there, at a time. You’ve been warned about this before. Rant at me as you like, but not all over the place.
She is prolific, despite her stated perceptions of reality are so often 180 degrees out of alignment with it.
Earlier today she posted “Stan has been banned here, repeatedly for posting a flood of this sort of thing: “, where this sort of thing is a list of facts (my words) she mixed in — consistent with her serial lying and torture advocating form — associations with murder rampages, whistleblower harassment activities, and menacing email campaigns. Its instincts are pure DDR Stasi, and its model, the Cheka, would also be proud of this nasty little piece of work. (America, you’ve come a long way, baby!)
She also avoids defining her personal definition of “repeatedly”. The exact number of my bans is two, deliberately ignored given it was she who cried like a baby to Daddy to get her way. I rarely speak for anyone but myself but I can make an exception saying anyone who has come accross her fecund bullshit here knows “that’s what she does”.
I did mention it would freak out when the advocate for extra judicial torture was asked about where it lived. This boring and predictable cry baby is the most depraved and dishonest full timer on the TI sock puppet staff. Not much to brag about, but the wind bag does anyway. Prolifically.
You are a very said case, and I neither ridicule nor mock you because you are ill. (It must be said, however, it’s no accident it’s wretchedly ill people like you who are allies of nuf’s. You and the hasbara trolls and assorted cranks.) As far as I can tell as a knowledgeable layperson, you are the only person here manifesting what truly seem to be clinical symptoms of mental illness — most of the rest of your equally unfortunate, fellow sufferers have been banned or lost interest. I wish you’d get professional help.
RE -Mona- -> Stan November 1 2016, 5:32 a.m. BRST
“…It must be said, however, it’s no accident it’s wretchedly ill people like you who are allies of nuf’s. You and the hasbara trolls and assorted cranks….
…you are the only person here manifesting what truly seem to be clinical symptoms of mental illness — most of the rest of your equally unfortunate, fellow sufferers have been banned or lost interest….”
— -Mona-
Allies cannot be vetted on the internet and the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my ally. The topic is the knee-jerk dishonesty many have noted, and your habit of making random associations does not give you the thinnest veneer of legitimacy and integrity.
Speaking for myself again, I find TI uninteresting because its ‘journos’ have displayed so much of the ubiquitous cowardice which permeates media business culture. And it cannot be denied now — by anyone but lying hacks — that G.G and Snowden have also profited handsomely from betraying those being attacked by the NSA’s data customers. This is disgraceful and comforting to you for whatever reason, but the ongoing betrayal is TI’s only slightly interesting trait now, and will remain so. Other than that it’s just another fluffy Guardian or Salon.
Your statements on the subject of routine torture in the USA — after a decade and a half of permanent undeclared war on an abstract noun ( think about that… ok don’t think about it :-) — are perfectly in line with what the KGB and US equivalents have always done when dealing with dissidents who refused to internalize the State’s bullshit and are consequently attacked: label them ‘mentally ill’. It is not original but after a hundred years it is still the best your kind can muster.
It would be interesting to see you put under Zersetzung for just a single month. Your reputation for dishonesty would put you at a great disadvantage when attempting to explain your experiences, and you would have to stop citing your charming Stasi collaboration effort and other “credible” stories on the topic planted in the NYT.
You. Need. Professional. Medical. Assistance. The delusions you believe are real ARE NOT REAL. But your suffering, as is true with all paranoid schizophrenics (like my deceased brother), is genuine. You can probably get help; please seek it.
As I mentioned before, many of your stated perceptions of reality are often 180 degrees out of alignment with it. In the case of your last reply, all of them are misaligned.
How could you possibly know if another’s experience is real or not, and who is and is not a paranoid schizophrenic? The answer is you cannot know. To say you do is yet another one of your lies.
To claim the US has not been stalking and attacking dissidents using Stasi harassment and torture techniques over the last fifteen years is silly. Only Americans would believe claims as absurd as yours. (That might explain you willingness to repeat them.)
Your statements and behavior have confirmed serious mental illnesses run in your family and you have not escaped them yourself. You seem more than a wee bit ‘touched’.
If this isn’t a cry for help, I don’t know what is. (Edited for satire)
It’s official; -mona- is off the rails …
(It must be said, however, it’s no accident it’s wretchedly ill people like you who are allies of nuf’s. lol
“She also avoids defining her personal definition of “repeatedly”.”
-Mona- repeatedly tells people to not read/engage others in an effort to silence speech.
Reprehensible behavior for anyone but she’s Glenn’s former law partner …
I understand anyone can request court records and see who is who in lawyer-land. Mona suggested that herself.
She’s serious. Others are not. She
Nope. Shunning is an appropriate social tool applied to the immoral. It is also a good way to deal with annoying troll-like posting short of modding.
Proponents of immoral beliefs ought not be silenced for their views per se, but decent people may properly refuse to substantively engage them. That includes shunning antisemites, like you. As Gator, an Observant Jew, has sometimes done.
That you manifestly despise me, imply I am mentally ill & etc., can only work for my reputation. I want Jew-haters to find me insufferable. Do carry on, as long as it doesn’t overtake threads.
And to again make clear: Stan and you are two very different cases. He is very likely ill; beset by psychosis. You are simply depraved.
“And to again make clear: Stan and you are two very different cases. He is very likely ill; beset by psychosis. You are simply depraved.”
You can diagnose over the internet.
Check.
OT, just how reflective is your monitor? Does it have a frame holding small light-bulbs, attached to the desk, by chance?
@MS Mouse
MSM, you’re confused! I am the last thing on then planet from a Peter Thiel or Donald Trump fan. Thiel’s statement, while incredibly useful, was not intended to be — at least not useful in the way I advocate using it.
Peter Thiel is not a crusader for reform of the criminal and civil justice systems; access to affordable counsel for the poor and middle class is not on his radar. Not at all. He simply, and unwittingly — in defense of his campaign against a free press — made an extremely useful observation.
ah the absurdity of predatory wallstreet faux capitalism and faux democracy in word…
A: i understand he’s a millionaire
B: single?
A: oh he’s single all right, just got divorced
B: i mean single millionaire or double?
A: triple…..
that the subject of wealth has become important in America just shows that being modest class pride happy and comfortable has been demoted – and for Americans, that is the worst thing
Want the country back? EXPORT ALL MILLIONAIRES & BILLIONAIRES TO MEXICO, make mexico great again.
O/T
Looks like Donna Brazile is being fired from CNN for giving Clinton the answers to debate questions prior to the debate.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cnn-cuts-ties-with-donna-brazile-after-hacked-emails-suggest-she-gave-clinton-campaign-debate-questions-183855590.html
CROOKED HELLARY!
election rigging? NO PROBLEM
lying to the public? NO PROBLEM
lying to the f…b…i…? NO PROBLEM
demoting America to the TPP? NO PROBLEM
continuing genocide in Palestine? NO PROBLEM
sparking off WW3? NO PROBLEM
getting ready for halloween? ALWAYS READY
Hellary’s idea of GREAT SEX? screwing everyone but her husband and backers!
“Hellary’s idea of GREAT SEX? screwing everyone but her husband”
lol
Ya NAILEd it on Killary. As Did Peter in today’s message!
If you’re a single-digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system….
What a great catch!
Thiel, of course, did not intend for his statement to be used for criminal justice reform and/or to provide taxpayer-funded subsidies for both criminal and civil litigants. But when he says the above he’s right in many ways. (Ironically, just not so much for the narrow class of cases like the Hulk Hogan matter; such cases are taken on contingency if a lawyer thinks it really has merit.)
That statement can and will be used, a lot, for important advocacy. Thiel will no doubt regret saying it, but it speaks to the reality that justice cannot be had in this nation by any but the most wealthy. It also constitutes Thiel’s admission that, as a billionaire, he can buy the results he deems just. Until this changes our order is grossly unjust.
See Glenn Greenwald’s book: With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. Thiel’s statement should be branded on all subsequent editions.
Exactly right. All one has to do is to look at the lack of prosecution of police murderers, and the statistics on how many poor people have been sent to prison for lack of able defense to ratify Thiel’s statement.
That unscrupulous lawyer’s remark on the subject stinks of its usual hypocrisy and inconsistency, typical of american sociopaths.
I guess you aren’t aware she has accused all us zersetzung targets of planning or participating in cop ambushes, nor aware of of her lawyerly lack of integriy in general.
You can see her turn on a dime if you ask the filth-bucket where it lives. She’ll show you what civil cowards do in america: threaten to ban you and characterize you as a threat to her allies. Yes, those same murderous cops you just referred to.
Stan is a very unfortunate person, one who is almost certainly mentally ill. He declares that he is a Targeted Individual. In the U.S., several of these afflicted people have gone on murder rampages, driven by their paranoid delusions.
They harass and menace many who publicly advocate for whistleblowers in the national security context. Indeed, several whom these sick people harass are writers here at The Intercept; these writers receive threatening and disturbing emails from these unstable individuals, emails I have often seen and discussed with the writers.
Stan has been banned here, repeatedly, for posting a flood of this sort of thing:
He has also menacingly demanded to know where I live, and then been deleted and banned again. He has said he will not respect any ban and will continue to make new accounts in circumvention of all bannings. Rather obviously, that’s what he’s done.
He’s very ill and should seek professional help.
I completely agree with the need for scale balancing, I’m amused that you would defend this guy and by extension his guy. You do realize that between Thiel and Trump we’d end up with zero voice and an end to net neutrality, right? They would sue every whack job like you and me into silent oblivion.
that is actually funny. Donald Trump files a class action lawsuit against all persons who voted for hellary the wallstreet whore clinton.
MIGHT WIN.
Dumb..Story..How. One the story about Israel hack phones has the comments section locked? Wha dad ya afraid of, getting hacked?
it’s a replay article from a while back
Oh, thanks
Stupid article. Why? Because indigent defense has nothing to do with the type of high profile civil lawsuits done by Thiel or Hulk Hogan against Gawker. Why the author of this article would start talking about indigent defense is beyond me. Just dumb.
This has nothing to do with Trump. Mackey’s Humpdown is polluting the reporting here.
Man, I think this is now reasons #s 545-547 why I will not be voting for Hillary Clinton.
http://observer.com/2016/10/2006-audio-emerges-of-hillary-clinton-proposing-rigging-palestine-election/#.WBOP6mO8ojs.twitter
Doesn’t believe Palestinians should have been “allowed” to have elections, and if they did “we” [presumably America and Israel] should have “done something” to guarantee a particular result.
She doesn’t know that Russia did not “invade Afghanistan”, but that the recognized government of Afghanistan at the time invited the Russians in to assist them. Simple enough fact to verify on Wiki assuming you weren’t alive then.
And her reference to “those cultures”.
But hey everyone who isn’t on board with the Hillary Clinton electoral train is a misogynist racist apparently. So does that mean that all the voters who voted for Pres. Obama in his primary vs. Hillary Clinton were misogynists and racists then, or just now?
brilliant
and if Americans ever regain their sense of humor, with the pent up hypocrisy of it all, cant have that.. we could all die laughing.
Like I have been saying, there is no law in the us and american lawyers are an anachronism. And that may be an absurdly generous characterisation because if us lawyers are an anachronism it implies the us was at one time or another a nation of laws, which was never true for many of its “citizens”, as many in the BLM organiaztions now realize.
Really despicable, how this site is supporting Gawker, the numbers prove Hogan could not have sued the company without bankrupting himself, so there goes that. The fued you fail to mention was Gawker outing him while he was in a country that kills gays, and honestly he has been restrained in seeking revenge for that attempt on his life.
Your coverage is slipping.
I read the article as a criticism of Gawker. They (1) failed to secure backing from a billionaire and (2) attacked a billionaire. What did they expect would happen?
I guess they missed the death by billionaire part. Likely because they they thought we had a first amendment or some such trivial impediments to some crap.
It’s called the Bill of Rights because you only get the rights if you can afford the legal bill.
Please link to one example of any nation detaining or prosecuting an American billionaire (or even millionaire for that matter) simply based on that host nation’s awareness that said American millionaire or billionaire is gay or lesbian.
We’ll wait, thanks.
@ Garrett
Three days and not a single example. Color me shocked.
Justice is usually represented with a scale for weighing payments, but this needs to be updated. In any legal dispute, each side should be required to disclose their net worth, and the judgment would be pronounced in favor of the party with the higher net worth. Cases could be decided very quickly and the end result would be the same. There’s no excuse for sticking with an outmoded and inefficient system of justice.
Indigent defense is something completely different – a relic from an era when there was a shortage of prisons and therefore it was in the public interest for some defendants to be acquitted. Nowadays, all that’s required is to throw the defendant in prison until such time as he or she is capable of paying for legal representation. Society is now enlightened and every citizen should have a right to a jail cell. We shouldn’t blindly follow obsolete practices from the regressive past.
Who needs a courthouse? Just set up an ATM with a big awning.
But the transition of our prison system to private ownership, and with it the institution of a profit motive, changes the situation somewhat. In addition to net worth, the CVs or statements of qualifications of the accused will need to be provided, so that the prisons can better match the qualifications matrices of their populations to the requirements of the enterprises being operated there.
In fact, now that I think of it, the prison system can greatly aid in the restoration of American greatness. We can certainly compete with Chinese prison labor using American prison labor, so all we need to do is imprison the people whose jobs have been moved abroad, and set up factories inside so they can perform their old jobs again. Even better, we can simply fence in the old factories, making prisons of them. Capitalism can then flourish as never before.
by jove i think you’ve gawt it!
i read the incarcerrated (elite word) persons can earn $10 – $15 a day. They are charged $25 a day. I believe the calcuation is that based on their estimated remaining life left and their net debt to the prison owners, they are released at such point so that at minimum wage they pay all of their earnings to said prison owner until dearly departed (non-elite phrase).
it’s almost comical that the settlers and founders of the US, having escaped the predatory nature of Britain, have mutated into something far worse.
Apples and oranges. “Indigent defense” refers to criminal prosecutions. Theil is talking about civil actions (in this case, for defamation) which are generally far more complicated and expensive. There is no legal requirement for a “speedy trial” in civil actions as there is in criminal ones, so deep-pocketed defendants can drag them out for years, even decades, which drives up costs. Theil is correct: “single-digit millionaires”, whose assets are usually tied up in real estate and the company they own, don’t have the liquid cash to afford such litigation.
I’m not saying that indigent defense isn’t underfunded; it probably is. But that’s an entirely different matter than the one Theil is addressing.
Yes, you’re absolutely right. It’s a non-sequitur, civil lawsuits and indigent defense have nothing in common. Stupid article. Moving along to hopefully more intelligence based articles (at other websites as this one seems to be going down the drain….)….
i disagree.
Theil may be speaking strictly about civil cases but the same rule applies to criminal cases. I shall make my case; plea bargains vs protracted defences. Mr broke vs OJ Simpson.
And lucky for OJ, (i happen to believe he was innocent and later framed), he could defend himself in what was probably a drug money collection problem.
Thiel is an insufferable jerk. I wonder if I’ll get sued by Thiel for stating that personal opinion. Unfortunately I’m not a single digit millionaire, but fortunately I can access the legal system and defend myself as a lawyer (absent an incredibly expensive discovery fight). The vast majority of Americans who are non-lawyers or non-single digit millionaires (a laughable claim that they can’t access the legal system or defend themselves) can’t. That’s the reality of the “system of justice” in America, it only “works” well for the relatively affluent unless a lawyer is willing to take on cases for relatively non-affluent folks either pro-bono, flat fee or on contingency.
Now presumably most people hate lawyers, but I’d wager there is no other profession (including doctors) where as much of that professional’s time and efforts are given away uncompensated or ridiculously below “market rate”. And right there is one of the biggest problems with America’s “system of justice”–it is “pay to play” just like America’s political system.
I’ve never been able to reconcile that reality about America. Lawyers all over the country spend a lot of time and money trying to raise money for programs like Campaign for Equal Justice, but it really amounts to an insignificant bandaid on a systemic injustice underlying everything that the “system of justice” in America does.
hatem till you needem? I do gather that most Americans would score them down until they need one. Being a trumplike myself and having instructed lawyers on needs i do appreciate lawyers muchly, however… as a negotiator of relationships for business, i would never let a lawyer make policy or run a business. Put a lawyer in charge of a business and they will ruin the business.
Lawyers were once “solicitors” who inscribed & codified the needs of by and for the people. But when they take charge, it’s all downhill because integral in their methods and structures is a relationship to power. For the sake of power never but never equals or even approximates equality.
That is the problem and the ultimate achilles heal of democracy and America. in my opinion.
Funny, what Gawker does is exactly what Trump does to small businesses and contractors, stiffs on payment for their work and says “just sue me”. How about the less than single-digit-millionaire small businesses?
by the way –
contractor stiffing on last payments in the construction business is actually common, par for the course, and anticipatable as in “OK. I will give you what you ask for even tho your prices are too high so go get the job done right now and forget my last payment”.
Bidding a job and getting time and material is the best way – also avoids code cheating.
Aren’t indigent defense lawyers defending against prosecutors who also don’t have much money? I think Thiel’s point stands for cases like Gawker, who do (did) have millions to spend on lawyers.
And the crux of Thiel’s long-running dispute with Gawker? Gawker outed him.
A better way to help the indigent would be to legalize vice and decrease the number and breadth of regulations that disproportionately impact the indigent.
Not quite.
They outed him while he was in a country that executes gays, about as close to an attempt on someone’s life as you can get without actually doing it.
Does said country kill gay American billionaires? gimme a break. Thiel is delusional. How generous of him to help “single digit” millionaire reality TV trash defend their already sullied names. what a guy. Not surprising he supports Trump who has said the following…
“One of the things I’m going to do if I win… I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money,” Trump said during a rally in Fort Worth, Texas.
Think about that and the possible ramifications. That should be enough to scare the crap out of any American.
Please link to one example of any nation detaining or prosecuting an American billionaire (or even millionaire for that matter) simply based on that host nation’s awareness that said American millionaire or billionaire is gay or lesbian.
We’ll wait, thanks.
How about you provide a list of countries that executes gays for being gay, but where you would bet your life you would be safe simply for being a rich foreigner.
Money does not automatically equal safety from these sorts of regimes, there are plenty of examples of that.
Fine. Then demonstrate one of those “plenty of examples” of one of these horrible foreign regimes prosecuting, indicting and punishing any millionaire or billionaire (particularly an American one, but I’ll take any from any nation) for it being known that he/she is gay in the host nation’s country.
Just one will do. Thanks.
@ Garrett and Harald K
Three days and not a single example. Color me shocked.
Are both you guys afraid of being struck by lightning or perhaps the evil evil Muslim boogieman is going to come to your home in Des Moines and steal your precious bodily fluids before lopping off your head with a scimitar while shouting allahu ‘akbar?
Or if you were rational and understood statistics understand that Peter Thiel being arrested and prosecuted for being gay in any country in the world is probably less likely than actually being killed by being struck by lightning, due to a bee sting, or slipping and falling in your bathtub.
Poor poor Peter Thiel the hyper rich multi-billionaire with an American passport, his life is so so so so so so so so very much at risk wherever he goes all over the globe.
that would mean loosening the straps on the straight-jacket. Where’s the money in that?
Disclosure: Pierre Omidyar supported the far-right coup in the Ukraine and magically, the Intercept has never covered it. He also has given over $100,000 to the Never Trump campaign.
This message (and website) has been approved by Hillary Clinton.
To be fair, The Intercept did cover some articles that should be reported about Ukraine, like the Islamist rebels fighting there and Breedlove trying to increase tensions with Russia.
Pretty sure a Clinton approved website wouldn’t have published stories like this during the primary: https://theintercept.com/2016/03/10/hillary-clinton-stalwart-friend-of-worlds-worst-despots-attacks-sanders-latin-american-activism/
“[Omidyar] also has given over $100,000 to the Never Trump campaign.”
He should have to disclose NYT Bob Hackey’s salary as a Clinton donation.
The tripe that has been printed by Bob is pure trash. #StenoBob
https://theintercept.com/2015/10/29/why-is-sam-charles-hamad-the-daily-beasts-russia-critic-silent-about-so-many-hideous-abuses/
Right. Sure.