Cops asked the jury for millions after Afroman used raid footage in music videos.
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Afroman keeps trolling cops after winning “Lemon Pound Cake” defamation case
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Does their job description include stealing pound cake and disabling private security cameras?
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Sort of.
You're right, the suit was a civil action. But honestly, if the government who hired the idiots had any sort of process whatsoever to compensate a victim for the bad policing, I'm not sure the parodying would have gone so far, or even happened at all.
But law enforcement in the US is famous for routinely breaking down doors of perfectly innocent people and then walking away, leaving the victim with, at the very least, costly property damage to clean up. And since they were "just doing their job", the government says "nope, you can't file a claim against us, you'll just have to pay for the damage yourself".
So, sure...technically this was just about the parody and some snowflakes who couldn't take the ribbing after they screwed up. But it exists in a broader context of abuse by law enforcement and helps chart a path forward for other people who might be similarly harmed by that form of government overreach. Nitpicking about whether Afroman was just fighting these individuals, or fighting the system more broadly, seems to me to be missing the point.
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They got rich, money overshadows everything. They align themselves with whoever they believe will let them keep more of it. Also, perceived proximity to power/whitness where they believe they are now "above" the issues they came from. So they align with the power structure that they once railed against.
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There are a variety of reasons, but I'll give you a hint for the big one: It's misogyny.
Also in the mix: Democrats taking the Black vote for granted and coasting off their work in the Civil Rights Movement how many years ago? Liberal scolds who police language and values to the point where they turn off people they pretend they're white knighting for. Frustration with economic policies. For the really rich celebs they're just going for self and looking for tax breaks.
But mostly it's the misogyny.
That's why you see these rappers on these "manosphere" shows.
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The officially unofficial role of police in America (and most places, to be clear) is to utterly rape, repress, and humiliate the state's disfavored out-groups.
So, uh, yeah.
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What would've been even funnier is if he did say no, and then they had to call up his wife to testify under oath to the same and she went
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These people thought being called a lesbian is worse than being called a groomer, pedophile, or cheater...
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Could be a combination of anti-vax beliefs (this was a larger issue during the pandemic but I could imagine it caused a good chunk of black voters to leave the democratic party) and cultural/religious conservatism (I have heard black pastors speaking out against the LGBTQ community, I could easily see aspects of MAGA's culture war rhetoric gaining at least a bit of momentum there).
But like other posters here have said, its a complicated issue and theres lots of moving parts at play.
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Both the right and left have their share of single-issue voters. Difference being the right will vote for someone based on a single issue. The left will vote against you or not vote at all for a single issue.
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It is a trend and it is power seeking, but for many of them I’ve noticed that they have legal problems they want tidied up. Nelly certainly did. Snoop Dogg wanted his friend pardoned (and it worked). Nicki Minaj’s brother and husband (separate people) are both convicted sex offenders. Her husband tried to dodge getting registered.
Other celebs are doing the same, the black ones are just more valuable to the admin because of their race. Imagine that.
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I mean, if I knew for certain there would be bacon at the end, it might make living through all this rampant fascism a little easier.
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The funniest thing about the pound cake theft is if you really thought this was a drug house. . . instead of eating the cake, wouldn't you send a sample to the lab to test it for drugs?
Would have been funny for Afroman to drop a song,
"The officer ate piece of pound cake, and then he got high. . .
He realized he made a mistake, and then he got hiiiigh doo do dooo do dooo do doo"
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Maybe you're one of those who didn't read the entire article? Because it includes some coverage of Afroman's interactions with Trump, which read as just an opportunity to promote himself, his products and his own silly presidential run.
Unabashed celebration of this victory is not unabashed celebration of everything Afroman. It's celebration of American free speech over the police state, as practically all the celebratory comments mention. So while you're parsing the actual nuances, you could include the nuance that Afroman doesn't seem to actually be MAGA, just a self promoter of parody for a living.
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You shouldn't be able to have qualified immunity and then be able to try to do whatever this shit is. Also ACAB and get the fuck rid of qualified immunity.
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It's extra funny that the court agreed with Afroman's lawyer saying that since the cop's testimony about his wife meant Afroman fucking her is factually unknowable it was opinion and therefore protected free speech. Because the circumstances were it's unknowable whether a person fucked a specific other person means so many other people fucking her that who could find that needle in that haystack.
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Law enforcement officers have exceptional power over the populations they police and should be held to exceptional standards. If the police were ever generally trusted (not in my lifetime) then maybe qualified immunity made sense then. Today it just seems to shield law enforcement from any liability for wrongdoing.
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"Your Honor, if it please the court, and thus it's not lie. Thus it's not lie. Thus it's not liiiiiiieee."
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I have relatives, by marriage, on my side and my wife's side. I happen to like those relatives generally.
You are also not generally wrong about the majority of cops (to a more limited degree than normal, including my relatives who are cops, not that I'd know if they lie on the job, but there is definitely a level of arrogance over the law and more of a "laws for thee, not for me. I' a cop!" attitude).
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It is very simple. They remove the rights by going after someone that you don't support (think of the children or those other guys are ebil being two favourites). Once the rights are gone you lost them just as much as the guy you didn't agree with.
This is just another example of the famous "first they came for..."
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Exactly. This was CLEAR CUT 1st Amendment Protected Speech. I celebrate the victory, at a time when it seems like so much of the Constitution is being ignored and violated. I don't have to like Afroman's Trump affiliations, to be glad that cops can't get away with suing people for criticizing their illegal and/or abusive activities.
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This makes me think of my stepdaughter who only seems to date assholes.
Some people are only happy when they have something to bitch about. If she ever found the "perfect man" she'd likely leave him for a drug addict biker.
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There’s something to this, but I’d put these folks in a separate category if only because they existed pre Trump. More have certainly come out since though.
Kanye is the prime example.
Kanye West on What Would Meek Do by Pusha T, 2018
It goes without saying that Kanye exited his self aware era a long time ago.
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No, there's no evidence that he's actually a MAGA idiot. The evidence is easily seen as him being just an opportunistic self promoter, and not actually MAGA. Other than a little self promotion while running his own silly presidential campaign, there's nothing MAGA about him.
More importantly, nobody deserves cops suing them for defamation over a video mocking them for a wrongful house raid in which they damaged his property and $400 went "missing". All Americans deserve the court deciding he's protected by free speech rights, and he did more than you have to secure that in the MAGA era.
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You do realize that when there's no connection between actions and outcome, just dessert theory ("deserves") does not apply. It appears that you merely want to see people that you disagree with be hurt.
If 'bad' people deserve to have their local police raid them and then sue them to silence them, there's nothing to stop it from being done to you, because you're human, and undoubtedly a bad person in someone else's eyes too. There's a difference between misfortune and comeuppance, and people celebrating misfortune may just learn that difference when misfortune befalls them too.
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And casually stealing any loose cash they came across. But the police "officers" efforts to disable/delete Afroman's own security video demonstrates that they were chiefly concerned about their own accountability, and covering up any potential for evidence against them, rather than interested in adhering to the law themselves.
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Their defense was, "My actions taken in malice against a person of color just because I think I have the authority, and think I have the power to do that, had consequences I didn't like, so it's their fault I'm being called out for it in the worst way possible!"?
Wow, odd that they can walk at all with balls that big. Oh, wait, it's the other way around. They act that way because they can't find the balls to be a decent human in the first place.
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That one jumped out at me too, especially coming right before "But none of them could prove that anything Afroman said was false or caused them economic harm."
The memo said:
PLAINTIFF BRIAN NEWLAND
During the trial testimony was presented that the Defendant had called Plaintiff Newland a "Pedophile", and a "Child Molester." When asked on cross, the Plaintiff articulated that he believed that the statements made by the Defendant, while nasty, were the Defendants personal opinion. As articulated opinions the statements can not support a claim for False Light. The Plaintiffs attorneys attempts to save Plaintiff Newlands case by articulating that the jury could fmd that the statements of the Defendant were fact. This is a misstatement of Ohio Law.
In Ohio, allegedly defamatory statements that constitute opinion enjoy an absolute privilege and may not give rise to a cause of action for defamation.P 'Once a determination is made that specific speech is "opinion," the inquiry is at an end." Thus, while the Plaintiffs attorney is attempting to save the case of Plaintiff Newland, his testimony that the statements were the Defendants opinions stopped any further analysis under false light.
I disagree with that. "Child molester" is a factual claim, not an opinion. But.... Brian Newland is apparently the one who said it. It sounds like his attorney understood the difference, but if the person complaining about a statement tells the court it was just an opinion, I guess the court can hold them to it. Maybe police should understand the law better?
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Wait a minute. His home was raided in 2022, and he was sued by these Ohio county cops in 2023, but because you assume that he voted for Trump in 2024, "he got what he voted for"?
Don't be a causality violating moron. That's even worse than unthinkingly wishing people harm because you disagree with them.
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It makes me wonder: who actually instigated the suits? Was this done by the officers, their department, their wives, the police union...?
Because based on what I've read/seen, the officers themselves don't appear to believe he defamed them, just embarrassed them and in some cases made their actions visible in a way that invited third party abuse (death threats, etc).
It's like they personally just wanted this to blow over, but some interested third party wanted revenge/the videos off the Internet.
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Long time ago I read on Black Twitter something along the lines of, and I am heavily paraphrasing and likely conflating more than one BT post from that long ago thread in 2020, the following....
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Did he have a countersuit? I feel it may be warranted though probably going after the state/police as opposed to individuals. The cost of legal fights can be astronomical.
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Has to be one of the biggest self owns in recent history. First they looked like bumbling idiots on camera. Then it was immediately proven they were bumbling idiots by not finding a single scrap of evidence for drummed up kidnapping charges of all things, then their bumbling idiocy was immortalized in a series of songs, and then they made the songs more popular than they ever would have been on their own by staging a huge media circus around them.
Whats really depressing is that they probably represent the median intelligence for police officers.
Whats really depressing is that they probably represent the median intelligence for police officers.
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