On Tuesday, Bill Clinton sprinted around Massachusetts, putting in appearances at a variety of polling places, stumping for his wife, and skirting state rules for Election Day campaigning. One New Bedford woman posted a video showing long lines that accrued as voters were forced to wait for Clinton to leave.
“We had to remind some of our poll workers that even a president can’t go inside and work a polling place,” the Massachusetts secretary of state, William F. Galvin, told the New York Times, after Clinton entered a polling place in Boston’s West Roxbury neighborhood to shake hands with poll workers and buy a coffee.
“We had to remind everybody what the rules are, that there is no campaigning within 150 feet of the voting booths because people are entitled to their privacy,” Galvin said. “And it’s not just him but his media entourage.”
Clinton later appeared with Mayor Jonathan Mitchell outside of a polling place in New Bedford. “He can go in, but he can’t approach voters,” the secretary of state said. “We just took the extra precaution of telling them because this is not a usual occurrence. You don’t usually get a president doing this.”
According to the Election Day Legal Summary on Galvin’s website, certain activities on Election Day are prohibited within polling locations and within 150 feet of polling places, including the “solicitation of votes for or against, or any other form of promotion or opposition of, any person or political party.”
Mayor Mitchell’s office did not immediately respond to Gawker’s request for comment on whether he and President Clinton were 150 feet away from the polling place, or whether anyone had anticipated delays caused by the president’s appearance.
Update – 8:00 pm
A spokeswoman for Mayor Jonathan Mitchell’s office writes, “Earlier today, former President Bill Clinton visited New Bedford and stopped briefly in Buttonwood Park where many area residents greeted him. The polling place in Buttonwood Park remained open at all times today and no orders were given to restrict access at any location. At no time did former President Clinton enter a polling location in New Bedford.”
In a statement on Tuesday, Ben Carson lamented the “lack of civility” in the Republican primary race, which he said has become an “embarrassment on the world stage.” During the debate last week, Carson pleaded, “Can someone please attack me?”
“If we are to defeat our Democratic opponent in the general election this November, we must reach an agreement together with each other that we will not succumb to the media’s desire for a fight on the stage in Detroit,” Carson said in his statement.
“I am confident that the five remaining candidates can rise above the sophomoric attacks of past encounters and have a serious discussion about substantive issues and how we will lead our nation forward toward a more prosperous and secure future.”
Also on Tuesday, Carson’s campaign chairman, Bob Dees, said that the good doctor has no intention of dropping out of the race, despite pressure from heavyweight Republican financiers and the fact that he has no chance of winning the nomination. “It’s been several...two groups of billionaire types of folks that have pressured him,” Dees said.
“We don’t have a well defined path to victory,” he continued. “But we think the opportunity still exists for people to wake up, and that’s what we’re hoping.”
In a speech celebrating his (in all likelihood) universal defeat on Tuesday, Marco Rubio courageously admitted Donald Trump’s supremacy. “He loves to talk about polls? We are seeing in state after state: His numbers coming down, our numbers going up.”
“Just five days ago, we began to unmask the true nature of the front runner in this race,” Rubio said. “Donald Trump is a con artist.” Maybe so! But he’s a con artist who has, so far, handily carried Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Welcome, patriots, to what history will almost certainly see as the night America sealed its gruesome fate. That’s right—it’s Donald Trump Victory Night. And judging by the various primaries and caucuses thus far, it’s sure to be a night we’ll never forget. No matter how hard we try.
We’ll be updating this post with all the most important, bizarre, and idiotic antics from tonight’s thirteen participating states, so keep checking back to see what our remaining presidential hopefuls have gotten themselves into next. Cruz, Carson, Kasich, Rubio, and Bernie will be there, too.
We’ll have a running list of winners down below.
Update: Early Winners
We can already call Georgia for Hillary and and Trump. Bernie takes Vermont, and Hillary has taken Virginia. As for Virginia on the GOP side, it’s still too close to call according to MSNBC.
Update: 7:15 p.m.
Unfortunately for Meet the Press, this is not actually what Vermont looks like.
Update: 7:17 p.m.
Once again, Hillary Clinton is vastly more popular with black voters:
Update: 7:29 p.m.
John Kasich is currently ahead (somehow) in Vermont with Rubio running neck-and-neck to Trump in Virginia.
Upate: 7:32 p.m.
Alaska does NOT want any Canadians taking its precious jobs and resources. Build that wall!
Update: 7:35 p.m.
Bernie Sanders is now giving his first (and likely only) victory speech of the night.
Upate: 7:44 p.m.
No matter who wins on the GOP side tonight, at least according to Predict Wise, the Democrats (i.e. Hillary) will take the White House in the end regardless.
Update: 7:52 p.m.
Apparently, Carson is saying he’s going to refuse to drop out of the race even if he doesn’t win any states tonight, saying “he’ll listen only to God and his supporters” since “the mainstream media is seeking to silence him.” All in all, a great prank by God.
Update: 8:01 p.m.
We have five more states coming in now, with all the ones that have been called so far going to either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
Upate: 8:13 p.m.,
About two percent of Massachusetts really just does not give even the slightest fuck.
I had previously said below that Massachusetts had been called for Hillary Clinton but that was incorrect and I am very sorry. It’s actually pretty close!
Also, an early look at what will soon be in every classroom in America:
Update: 8:26 p.m.
Cruz might actually win something!
All in all, a deeply embarrassing night for Rubio. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
Update: 8:31 p.m.
Arkansas has just been called for Hillary Clinton, with it being too close to call on the GOP side (though it appears to be a battle between Trump and Ted Cruz yet again). Meanwhile, Fox News has just called Virginia for Trump.
Update: 8:55 p.m.
Hillary Clinton is currently speaking in Miami, which seems like a weird place to give tonight’s speech but a great place to get hammered on South Beach. Here’s to hoping.
Update: 9:00 p.m.
Polls in Texas, the biggest prize of the night, just closed, with Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton being named the victors in their respective parties.
Marco Rubio still has not won a state, something even Ted Cruz has managed to do (three times!), but he is still very excited about how well he is doing. “We are seeing in state after state: His numbers going down, our numbers going up.”
Update: 9:37
Donald Trump’s strange Florida “press conference” has begun, with an introduction from shouty northeastern opportunist Chris Christie. Trump congratulates Ted Cruz for working hard, proclaims it a “tough night” for Marco Rubio, and talks a bit about China, Mexico, and making America great again. Is he going to break actual news? It’s unclear!
“Ted has a shot, because at least he’s won a little bit,” Trump says.
Update: 10:00
All time has stopped as Donald Trump’s endless, rambling, discursive press conference about nothing. Well, it’s sort of about everything, including about how much Marco Rubio is a loser. “Look, I always liked Marco until a week ago, when he decided to become Don Rickles.”
Meanwhile, Chris Christie has just been standing there, making, uh, this face.
Anyway, that’s how the election is going.
Update: 10:10 p.m.
The RNC has released a statement that conspicuously doesn’t mention a certain... Republican candidate.
Weird!
Update: 10:25 p.m.
Donald Trump is the projected winner of Arkansas. Good job, Donald! You did it! Ted Cruz is still talking.
Update 11:00 p.m.
Bernie Sanders just took Colorado! Figures.
Update: 11:14 p.m.
Fox News has just called Minnesota for Marco Rubio, his first actual win. Based on how delighted he is by his losses, Marco Rubio may have just had a heart attack.
Upate 11:32 p.m.
Bernie Sanders has just taken Minnesota, giving him four states total tonight (one less than he was anticipating).
Update: 12:07 p.m.
And finally, Trump has been officially called for Vermont.
Tonight’s primary results have been a mixed bag for Ted Cruz, presidential candidate and corpse recently fished out of a swimming pool. But that won’t stop his campaign from partying at the “Redneck Country Club,” a Texas venue owned by an astoundingly racist radio host.
Yes, it’s really called that, as CNN’s Jake Tapper explained earlier:
And yes, there’s really a Cruz campaign hoedown going on:
This may or may not shock you, but the Redneck Country Club is owned by an extreme, open racist by the name of Michael Berry, who hosts a racist radio program that includes a blackface “comedian” named “Dr. Rev. Shirley Q Liquor,” who provides a routine of vile black stereotypes for Berry’s white listeners. Here’s a segment from the show:
And Media Matters points out, Berry, a friend of Cruz’s for decades, has referred to blacks as “jungle animals” and “pack animals,” and tweeted in defense of a KKK billboard promoting white purity (“nothing wrong with it”). So remember: Donald Trump is the GOP candidate with a racist affiliation problem
Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com. Public PGP key PGP fingerprint: PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7
A panel of justices from the New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division ruled against dismissing Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s $40 million lawsuit against Donald Trump’s now-defunct Trump University.
According to the New York Times, the court decided that Schneiderman, who in 2013 filed a lawsuit accusing Trump University (later the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative) defrauding students of thousands of dollars, was authorized to pursue the case. Trump’s lawyers had argued that the statute of limitations for the claim had passed.
“We look forward to demonstrating in a court of law that Donald Trump and his sham for-profit college defrauded more than 5,000 consumers out of millions of dollars,” Schneiderman said in a statement Tuesday. Trump’s lawyer, Jeffrey Goldman, called the decision “intellectually dishonest.”
The suit alleges that Trump University ignored multiple warnings from the state’s Department of Education that it was violating state law by calling itself a “University” without being a licensed educational institution. Also, students were allegedly told that Donald Trump himself would make an appearance, but only ever got to take photographs with a life-size cardboard cutout.
Tonight, as Chris Christie introduced Donald Trump and stood by him during his resounding victory speech, we got to witness the exact moment that the beautiful light in Chris Christie’s soul forever dimmed. Chris—it’s not too late, and no man deserves this fate. Please, blink twice for help.
It was nearly impossible to pay attention to Trump’s speech, and not just because he repeated the exact same lines over and over again. Rather, the hostage situation to Trump’s left was far too captivating for us to look away from Chris Christie’s increasingly dead eyes for even a second.
On CNN tonight, in the course of Super Tuesday analysis, activist and former White House advisor Van Jones took Donald Trump surrogate Jeffrey Lord to task over the Republican frontrunner’s white supremacist sophistry.
Lord brings up Trump’s comments on the KKK only to obfuscate and equivocate, arguing that the KKK were actually a leftist organization (which is not true) and the terrorist arm of the Democratic party (which is sort of true, although ignoring the radical demographic shifts in the party over the course of the past century is either ignorant or dishonest).
This isn’t the first time Lord, a former aide to Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan who was an early advocate for the Trump candidacy, has made this ahistorical argument. In a 2010 essay for the American Spectator, he denied that Bobby Hall had been lynched. In 2013, he wrote:
At its very core, the Left is about tyranny. Intimidation. The mailed fist.
One can spend endless hours recalling the bloody tyrannies of the French Revolution, or Communism or the Nazis (aka the National Socialists) or, in America, the violence visited by leftist groups from the Ku Klux Klan to this or that labor union to all those 60s radicals who raced around the country in a murderous rage with bombs and bullets.
On Tuesday, Lord accused Jones of dividing people by race. Jones responded that it was the Klan that divided and killed people by race. “And they did it to further the progressive agenda,” Lord said, a smirk just beginning to creep into the corners of his mouth.
Donald Trump at his computer-less desk in 2010 (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The personal computer revolutionized the American home in the 1980s and 90s. And by the mid-90s mainstream America was getting online. But with Donald Trump now the presumptive nominee of the Republican party, there’s an interesting question that must be asked: Has Trump ever used a computer?
We already know that Donald Trump doesn’t tweet. Sure, he “tweets” in the sense that he dictates things to his personal assistants and interns. But we have little proof that he has ever banged out a message on Twitter by himself.
Some have called out Trump for going back on his promise to “boycott” Apple over their current fight with the FBI. News outlets point out that Trump’s tweets have pretty consistently been sent out on iPhones. But those aren’t his devices. Those are the smartphones of his personal aides, further evidenced by the fact that sometimes the tweets come from Android devices, and other times from Apple products.
So back to our original question: Has Donald Trump, the presumably human man, actually sat down at a computer and browsed the web, or checked email, or (and sorry for this image) looked at pornography? Has Trump ever used a smartphone to access the web? Has the likely candidate for the GOP race to the White House ever used a computer mouse or tapped on a computer keyboard? Has he ever hammered away at a typewriter, for that matter?
The New York Times examined Trump’s tech use in a July 28, 2015 story about a deposition he once gave. And it strengthens the case that Trump has never once touched a PC.
For a candidate who says he is an authority on modern business, Mr. Trump is slow to adopt technology. In 2007, he said he had no home or office computer.
“Does your secretary send emails on your behalf?” he was asked.
His secretary generally typed letters, Mr. Trump said. “I don’t do the email thing.”
By 2013, Mr. Trump was still not sold on email. “Very rarely, but I use it,” he said under questioning.
Notice that Trump says he uses email, but very rarely, without specifying who might be actually typing out his emails. Much like his tweets, it seems safe to assume that his “use” is confined to people reading him emails and Trump dictating responses.
So what about Trump’s web browsing? It would appear that he does read news from the web. But at the very least it’s printed out for him, as we can see from this February 2, 2016 tweet showing Trump in front of printed off articles from the Huffington Post.
Donald Trump reading web articles printed off from the Huffington Post (Twitter)
At 69 years old, Trump comes from an era when business executives weren’t expected to be proficient in typing. That was what secretaries and personal assistants were for. But at 68, we certainly know Hillary Clinton uses lots of devices for email. We have the memes and personal server controversies to prove it. People tend to evolve with the times.
I have found precisely one photo of Donald Trump “using” a smartphone in a manner that might seem as if he’s using it for its web capabilities. Since Donald has also said under oath that he doesn’t text, we have to assume that this photo from October of 2015 shows him doing something web-related, provided he’s not dialing a phone number. It’s almost like a photo of Bigfoot. (And about as believable.)
(Josh Haner/NYT)
There’s something about the photo that’s a little too neat. The image was for a story about Trump’s tweeting, which we’ve already established he doesn’t do directly. But presumably the photographer needed a photo of Trump “tweeting.” So whether it was Trump’s idea or the photographer’s, this one looks pretty staged. Maybe he did send out a single tweet for that shoot! But it seems unlikely.
I’ve also found another photo where Trump is “using” a smartphone by holding it up to his ear, but the caption by the Associated Press betrays the fact that he may not even be on a phone call.
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump listens to his mobile phone during a lunch stop, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C.
“...Trump listens to his mobile phone...”
We can assume that this bizarre wording means that the photographer never actually heard Trump having a conversation, but was merely listening to something on the other end. A sweet new song on Pandora perhaps? A conference call? Nobody knows. But whatever he was doing, there’s no evidence he pulled the phone from his ear to begin tweeting his amazing tweets or check his email.
(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
I also found this photo of Trump at the Economic Club of Washington on December 15, 2014. He appears to be speaking on an invisible phone, which isn’t so much evidence of anything, but just kinda funny.
It’s good to laugh while we still can, right?
Admittedly, I’ve never seen Trump’s signature reality TV shows—The Apprentice, Celebrity Apprentice, nor Ban All Muslims Apprentice. But my web searches have turned up nothing even close to The Donald™ using a computer on that show, let alone anywhere else.
If Trump has truly never used a computer, that would be a remarkable change of trajectory in American politics. Since the transition from Bill Clinton in the early 1990s to George W. Bush in the 2000s to Barack Obama, our presidents have changed with the technological times. None have been technological wizards, but they’ve appeared competent with the mainstream computing tech of their day.
Even the first President Bush, the man who got teased for not knowing how a checkout scanner worked back in the early 1990s, has been spotted with a computer mouse in his hand now and again.
George and Barbara Bush in 1999 (AP Photo/Pat Wellenbach)
There is no technological test for the presidency in the United States. A hypothetical President Trump would not be required to use a computer nor a smartphone. But it’s 2016. The future president of the United States will confront myriad issues involving the average American’s use of technology. And if you’ve never touched a computer in your life, it seems hard to imagine how Trump might relate to things as trivial as “information overload” or as important as mass government surveillance.
We have documentary evidence of Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, and Marco Rubio all using tablets, smartphones, and PCs. Somehow Trump has mastered the high-tech demands of running a 21st century presidential campaign without ever using those technologies first-hand. He’s on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter—all set up for him and controlled by his lackeys. Frankly, I’m not sure whether to be impressed or horrified.
I guess, of all the things to be horrified over regarding our future president, his technological prowess might be the least of our worries.
Update 2:40pm: As multiple commenters have noted, it appears that Trump has been seen tweeting from his own phone at least once. From Mark Leibovich at the New York Times:
After a few minutes, I saw Trump staring down into a phone glowing up into his shiny face. I checked my phone, too. ‘‘Speech in Dallas went really well,’’ it said in my Twitter feed, courtesy of @realDonaldTrump, who was tweeting next to me in the dark.
So it would appear that at the very least Trump knows how to use Twitter on his phone, assuming that Trump actually sent the tweet and it wasn’t typed out by someone else and/or pre-scheduled. Leibovich assumes that it was Trump tweeting, but without looking over his shoulder, we don’t know that he wasn’t playing that Kate Upton game you’re always seeing ads for.
Most importantly, we still haven’t answered the question: Have Trump’s short, vulgarian fingers known the loving touch of a computer mouse or keyboard?
(YouTube)
Update 3:46pm: A tipster has sent me this 2011 video of Trump railing against Ocuppy Wall Street. He appears to have a MacBook sitting behind him on his desk. Granted, he’s not using it and this video probably wouldn’t stand up in court as evidence that he’s actually used a computer in his life, but it’s something.
Update 4:13pm: Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski has pointed out to me that when Trump did the Howard Stern show back in 2005 Trump implied that he doesn’t really like email. The reason? All his friends just send emails about all the married women they’re having sex with.
“What really fascinates me is email. I have friends—first of all—half of my friends are under indictment right now because they sent emails to each other about how they’re screwing people,” said Trump. “Email is unbelievable. They’ll talk on the phone, they can’t even say hello, they don’t want to say hello or goodbye, and yet they’ll write you a message that they’re having sex with 15 different married women. It’s unbelievable. Email is unbelievable.”
Believable, actually. And yet, still not evidence that Trump has ever physically touched a computer. Much like his Huffington Post print-outs, it’s probably a safe bet that Trump’s aides give him emails in deadtree form.
Update, March 3rd, 1:50am: A tipster on Twitter points out that Trump did once knock over an employee’s computer monitor in an excited frenzy over a YouTube video. From a June 2015 story in Bloomberg:
“Ninety-nine million views,” [Trump] said, knocking over an employee’s computer monitor as he pointed to a YouTube video of rapper Mac Miller’s platinum-certified track, “Donald Trump,” playing on it. “Now that’s a brand.”
Again, we still don’t have evidence that Trump has ever touched a computer or its peripherals for their intended purpose, but it feels like we’re getting warmer.
If you have documentary evidence that Donald Trump has ever used a computer mouse, trackpad or touchscreen, please send it to novak@gizmodo.com.
In October 2014, Kesha filed a lawsuit against producer Dr. Luke, accusing him of sexual assault and battery, sexual harassment, and emotional distress, among other allegations. For over a year, Luke remained publicly silent about the suit, letting his legal team serve as his mouthpiece, while filing his own countersuit alleging extortion. All silence ceremoniously broke on February 21, when a judge denied Kesha’s request to be released from her contract under Luke’s Sony label Kemosabe. By then, the #FreeKesha fan army had already assembled. It was only after major artists like Lady Gaga and Kelly Clarkson voiced support for Kesha on Twitter—and after Luke’s lawyers claimed a “trial by Twitter”—that Luke felt compelled to use the platform to profess his innocence.
The day after the ruling, Luke wrote in one tweet, among other denials: “I didn’t rape Kesha and I have never had sex with her. Kesha and I were friends for many years and she was like my little sister.” What’s surprising, other than his decision to take the stand via Twitter, is that the tweets have yet to be deleted.
Discussing an ongoing legal case in public violates a traditional, unofficial rule of celebrity litigation (as well as litigation in general): never speak. And, on a basic level, posting on social media about a highly sensitive and ongoing entanglement—legal or not—violates a newer common-sense dictum: never tweet. “No comment” is typically the rule of thumb. But for Luke and other celebs, public opinion can grow so thick that it topples the need to stay tongue-tied.
In Luke’s case specifically, which involves allegations of fairly horrific sexual abuse, it’s tough to care too deeply about whether or not these tweets might hurt his case. What’s interesting, however, is how this question will play out in the future: how social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) has changed the legal game—both for the stars whose posts are guaranteed to draw attention, and their attorneys, who are paid to keep them out of trouble. Is the illusion of risk greater than the reality? How does a legal team control potentially boneheaded famous clients and avoid defamatory social media use?
Not surprisingly, the lawyers I spoke to about Luke’s and other prominent celebrity cases say they advise clients to stay away from social media altogether. “My hard rule would be not to say anything about any disputes that you’re involved in, in any kind of media,” says entertainment and sports lawyer Lisa E. Davis, who represents author Terry McMillan and has served as legal counsel on films like the documentary 9/11 and Malcolm X. “With social media, the rules are no different than they used to be for newspapers. The difference, of course, is that it’s not mediated by any editors, and even though you can quote-unquote delete it, you really can’t get rid of it.”
Even as famous people operate within the same legal system as normal people, the celebrity is clearly extra liable—in several different ways. In some cases, defamatory tweets or posts lead to lawsuits. While we might be able to get away with extremely rude tweets about exes or colleagues, Courtney Love got sued for it twice. In other situations, social posts, quickly amplified and preserved in a thousand screenshots, can damage already pending cases, as with 50 Cent’s bankruptcy case this year. Complications arise when celebs focus more on building relatable personas and keeping the public on their side at all times than on solving or avoiding legal trouble. In essence, they can’t just shut up.
In early February, Future was hit with a $15 million defamation suit from Ciara for allegedly slandering her in radio interviews and on Twitter, where he wrote: “This bitch got control problems...” (That tweet was later deleted). And: “I gotta go through lawyers to see baby future......the fuckery for 15k a month,” referring to their son. Future was seemingly trying to preserve his public image as a decent dad, but slandering, in Ciara’s eyes, his ex in the process.
In responding—not to Kesha but to the ego-defeating army of her supporters—Luke similarly seemed to be protecting his reputation as an artist and producer more than he was his chance at a fair trial. Luke wrote in his tweets: “Until now I haven’t commented on the lawsuits, which should be resolved in court not here on Twitter.” And: “It’s a shame that there’s so much speculation out there basing itself on so little information. The only truly objective person who knows the facts is the judge. The judge did not rule in Kesha’s favor on Friday.”
Kesha hadn’t been specific about the facts of the case in public either. After Luke’s tweets, she wrote a more detailed Facebook post stating that she’s not against working with Sony as long as Dr. Luke is cut off.(Bloomberg BusinessWeek explained why breaking the contract is legally implausible for Sony and how the power to sever the deal is ultimately in Luke’s hands.)
Music attorney Kamal Moo, who primarily negotiates recording contracts and publishing deals(he’s previously worked at BMG Music Publishing), considers Luke’s tweets to be fairly harmless. “There’s nothing that jumps out to me that could hurt him,” says Moo, adding, however, “The general theory is better not to tweet. He’s playing the public opinion game. But it hasn’t gone to trial yet and a court may not look favorably upon that. There’s definitely cost-benefit analysis there. Does it help you enough to go down this road and do that?”
Whether or not Luke’s tweets turn out to be legally risky, it’s the attempt at public vindication that stumps lawyers like Davis who understand the motivation but don’t see the gain. “So he tweeted that he didn’t rape Kesha. Did he think that’s somehow going to make it seem more believable?” says Davis. “Typically, when you have a situation like this, you have a coordinated approach so that any public statements are vetted by the lawyer and the crisis publicist to make sure it’s telling the story you want to tell. That it’s not contradicting anything that’s going to emerge in court proceedings. That it’s not going to damage your client. The risk with social media is that because there’s no intermediary, there’s no thought or planning.”
In another one of his tweets, Luke posted a screenshot of a 2014 TMZ story with a headline that read: “Lady Gaga denies claim by Kesha’s lawyer that Dr. Luke raped her.” Gaga subsequently posted a photo of herself with Kesha (along with the caption “Free Kesha”), as well as an Instagram note, drilling home the point that she fully stands by Kesha.
Entertainment litigator Bryan J. Freedman—whose clients include Mariah Carey, Chris Nolan and various unnamed celebrity victims of the infamous nude hacks—says of Luke’s tweets, “It might not harm his case, but it might speak about the case. And there may be some level of privacy and right to privacy that the other party has, to not have their name thrown out there over and over again.”
Freedman cites Bill Cosby as a prime example of a situation where the celebrity’s team has likely advised him that speaking or tweeting to clear your name won’t work any magic. Cosby has taken the old-school approach, remaining largely silent himself (he vaguely addressed the rape allegations in a GMA interview where he stated, “I can’t speak”) and never tweeting denials even close to what Luke has. Cosby’s most recent tweet, from December 31, is simply: “Friends and fans, Thank You.” However, his legal strategy is arguably much more questionable (and deplorable), with his team not only accusing his accusers of lying, but suing them in return.
“I don’t agree that you accuse the accuser. That’s not a smart way of creating public perception on your side,” says Freedman. “Cosby’s choice and strategy, albeit from [Cosby’s former lawyer] Marty Singer, has been to attack the women that have attacked him. In my mind, that’s the dumbest thing you could do. Most of the time you’re proving a negative: ‘I didn’t sexually assault her.’ That’s a hard negative to prove.”
The chance of a celebrity’s social activity having legal ramifications is inevitably higher, compared to that of the average user. 50 Cent saw how easily one post can backfire in real life, after he published a photo of stacks of money on Instagram on February 23—a judge ordered him back to bankruptcy court days later (50 initially filed for bankruptcy in July 2015). The judge told 50 Cent’s lawyer James Berman, “I’m concerned about allegations of nondisclosure or a lack of transparency in the case,” alluding to the fact that 50's social media boasting suggests he’s being dishonest in court about his finances. In fact, 50 has been posting money photos (and videos) on Instagram for months.
The (pretty foolish) perception he’s putting forth is that he’sfooled the courts into thinking he’s bankrupt, but still wants to show the public he’s rich.
Unfortunately for 50, social media posts can have a longer shelf life than traditional media coverage. “The New York Times is read by a number of people and then it’s gone. Twitter, however, people retweet and resend the defamatory information,” says Freedman. “So there could be a situation where the readership of [a national publication]is much less than the reach of a famous person’s Twitter. When we start to talk about damages, that becomes a big component.”
Ultimately, going on social media about an ongoing legal issue is hardly worth the headache, says attorney Joy Butler, who doesn’t litigate but does specialize in internet law (she’s also the author ofThe Cyber Citizen’s Guide Through the Legal Jungle: Internet Law for Your Professional Online Presence).
“Even if a social media posting is not publicly accessible as most Twitter posts are, your online life can be subpoenaed,” Butler wrote in an email. “Certain laws offer protection, but there are ways around those laws if a court is convinced that the online information is relevant to the case. I advise my clients and readers to treat the Internet as though it has no delete button—because it doesn’t.” She also—offering unexpected context for Dr. Luke’s still-standing tweets—suggests not deleting inflammatory posts, because “such haphazard attempts to protect yourself might ultimately have a negative impact on your case.”
Another celebrity who found herself dealing with legal consequences from Twitter is Courtney Love, who in 2009 went on a rant about fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir. In an unprecedented libel lawsuit, Simorangkir alleged that Love tweeted offensive statements (including one alluding to prostitution) after the pair stopped working together over payment issues. The rant ended up costing Courtney Love thousands of dollars. Freedman won two defamation lawsuits against Love in 2015, while representing Simorangkir.
Love was forced to pay $430,000 and $350,000, respectively, just for tweeting about Simorangkir; Freedman also found her transparency during legal proceedings odd. “Courtney Love was actually in a room during a mediation and she was tweeting out to the world what her lawyer was telling her was going on during the mediation,” he says. “It was the most unbelievable thing I’d ever seen in my life.”
Freedman, for the record, errs on the side of (almost) never tweeting. “I’m very careful about what I tell my clients to tweet and not to tweet,” he adds. “And that if they’re going to put something on Twitter, they make sure that it’s opinion, not fact. So don’t say, ‘She’s a thief who’s been in jail.’ Say, ‘I think people like this seem like the type of people that are not honest.’”
In less serious cases, tweetsor other social media proclamations can merely serve as proof of an agreement. Moo references producer Ryan Leslie, who announced a $1 million reward via YouTubefor a stolen backpack/laptop and then refused once the laptop was found. Leslie was later legally ordered to pay up. “I tell people to exercise common sense,” says Moo. “People think Twitter doesn’t matter, but in terms of establishing a contract or responsibilities, you can be held accountable.”
Whether Luke’s tweets are more or less spontaneous than 50 Cent’s Instagram posts, they could be just as harmful. “In any kind of social media posting, your Twitter followers are not the ones who are going to decide your fate. It’s a judge and a jury,” says Davis. “You’re potentially creating evidence that can be brought back to undercut whatever claims you’re trying to make in court. Best case, it has no effect whatsoever. Worst case, it is something that could be used to cross examine you.”
A celebrity doesn’t even have to directly reference their legal case for there to be reasonable doubt about their social media use. Pharma sleaze Martin Shkreli, who’s facing charges of securities fraud, is emboldened enough to regularly live-stream his daily life and mundane activities, potentially giving his opposition hundreds of hours of video evidence in what feels like a perplexing attempt to live up to his slime ball persona. For lawyers, something so seemingly innocuous is still “ill-advised,” notes Davis.
“If people in a potential jury pool say, ‘Oh yeah I’ve seen those videos and that guy’s a jerk,’ they’re gonna get disqualified from serving on the jury so maybe [someone like Shkreli] thinks, well, I’ll poison the entire jury pool. I don’t know,” she says. “It’s just never a good idea. And people that do that typically think they’re the smartest person on their team. Even if they’re really, really smart people, they don’t have the objectivity of the professionals that are working for them.”
Legally and socially speaking, the best recourse is to never tweet.
There’s currently a “ceasefire” in effect throughout Syria, in an attempt to stem bloodshed between Russia, Turkey, the Syrian government, and various rebel groups. It has been violated over 30 times already. To help the U.S. keep track of this humanitarian disaster, the State Department is running a war zone hotline for Syrians to report violence. So far, it’s not going well.
According to Syria Direct, a non-profit journalism outfit providing local coverage of the ongoing Syrian civil war, trying to report ceasefire violations to the U.S. government hasn’t been much more productive than calling Comcast. If you can even get through to the 202 number (yes, you’ll have to place a long-distance international call from a war-ravaged country to reach the State Department by phone), your experience might be something like this:
“I called at 12:45am Saturday morning, just 45 minutes into the ceasefire,” says Syria Direct reporter Wilcox.
“I didn’t expect an American to answer; he answered in English but switched to Arabic. I started telling him in Arabic about reports we were getting from Homs province of specific ceasefire violations.”
[...]
“He’s really struggling and can’t understand me,” says Wilcox. “I’m like, why is this American guy on the phone who can’t speak Arabic? I’d give a detailed account of something happening in Homs province and he would listen and his answer was: ‘Homs.’ That’s it.”
Syria Direct also reports an instance of a “wrong number” response as well as “what appeared to be an accidental string of expletives.” But more worrying than the technical issues are what appear to be a lack of preparedness on the part of those picking up the phones:
During the call Osama told the operator the name of the village (Hirbinifsah) four times and spelled it out.
However, when Osama asked whether the operator knew where the village was, he responded: “Yes, Harb Bebsi,” the latter being the word for “Pepsi” in Arabic.
Luckily, State is offering app-based options (like Telegram) and a Google Voice number. Unluckily, these channels probably still lead to the Harb Bebsi guy.
Update: A State Department spokesperson provided me with the follow comment:
“To help monitor the cessation of hostilities in Syria, which started February 27, the U.S. Department of State established an information hotline, staffed 24/7, where violations can be reported via phone, email, text, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Google Voice. This information hotline is part of our broader Syria team and staffed by State Department personnel, some of whom speak Arabic. We have received reports of violations, take them very seriously, and want to see every allegation thoroughly reviewed. We are mindful and working to address the difficulties that some have experienced when calling in to convey reports of violations in Arabic. We appreciate the continued patience and forbearance of those sharing this information – as well as their bravery to do so – as we continue to develop and improve mechanisms to monitor the cessation of hostilities.”
Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com. Public PGP key PGP fingerprint: PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7
Prison has not been kind to former Subway spokesman-turned-convicted-sex-offender Jared Fogle.
This year, Fogle—who made millions off the weight he lost eating Subway—admitted his pedophilia on tape and was ultimately convicted of having sex with two minors and possession of child pornography. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, which he began serving in November.
According to an incredibly detailed report from the preferred magazine of celebrity offenders, In Touch Weekly, Fogle has spent the last three months binge-eating while his fellow inmates taunt him.
“Jared’s breakfast is usually Frosted Flakes with fruit or oatmeal with cake. He loves ‘cake day’ in the dining hall twice a week and he buys Honey Buns by the box, as well as other pastries, in the commissary on his weekly shopping day,” adds the insider. “He’s been known to eat an entire box of eight at one sitting!”
“Jared is regularly taunted by those who have it out for him,” the prison insider states.
“One of the men called Jared a ‘dirty child rapist’ and told him to ‘get the f—k out’ and not come back,” a recently released inmate from Colorado’s Federal Correctional Institution — Englewood exclusively reveals.
All-in-all, a poetic result in what remains a terrible story for literally everyone involved. Still not enough to impress the New York Post.
In what is a major get for South by Southwest (SXSW) and a deeply embarrassing move for the Office of the President, Barack Obama will be interviewed in a “keynote conversation” during the annual vanity carnival’s opening day. All of which is to say, Obama’s about to drop an app.
The president is scheduled to sit down for a conversation “about civic engagement in the 21st century” in front of an audience of “creators, early adopters and entrepreneurs who are defining the future of our connected lives.” Yikes.
Why the President Obama feels the need to punish himself so callously remains unknown, but we do at least know what some of this self-inflicted torture will look like via SXSW’s official release:
The President will call on the audience to apply their ideas and talents to make technology work for us – especially when it comes to tackling big challenges like increasing participation in the political process and fighting climate change.
After which, Obama will be announcing the launch of his post-presidential messaging app, barack.ly.
Congratulations to President Obama on his foray into the startup world’s most pretentious display of vanity and excess. Sucks that we have to impeach him now.
Although Ben Carson today admitted he has no “political path forward” and says he will not attend the next GOP debate, he declined to actually withdraw himself from the race.
Venezuela—with a broken economy, runaway inflation, and rampant crime—is so fucked right now. How fucked is Venezuela since the last time we told you how fucked it was?
Venezuela has the distinction of being the world’s worst-performing economy, thanks to cratering oil prices, incompetence, and corruption. Despite that, the country continues to somehow make its foreign debt payments, funneling precious billions to outside lenders, even as one financial observer muses that “my sense is that they really run out of everything at the beginning of next year.” Despite that, Venezuela’s most immediate response to rampant inflation is to start printing bank notes in larger denominations. The country is so politically polarized that its courts are facing off against its legislators in a war over judicial appointments. The government grew so fat and happy on oil revenues that it allowed the entire agricultural sector to wither away, and now it can’t grow enough food to feed people. Even the supply of Venezuelan baseball players is drying up. People have no toilet paper. Farmers have no potato seeds. Even if they did, they couldn’t plant them, because armed robbers are stealing all the tractors and holding them for ransom. Venezuela’s most reliable current export is the Zika virus, although they’d rather not discuss it. In Caracas, the former mayor’s on trial for conspiracy, millions of people don’t have a reliable drinking water supply, electricity is being rationed, and people have taken to hijacking food trucks just to stay alive.
