I'm thinking there's libel/slander going on here.
It's in print, on a billboard, so why not a deep pockets lawsuit against whoever is behind it? Go right on up the ladder, sue them into obscurity.
Maybe we'd find Soros at the head of the infection.
I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but I think the standards the Supreme Court set in
Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988), and in
New York Times Company v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) are likely to apply in any libel suit against the PAC that is putting up these billboards around the country.
In
Falwell, the Court held that the First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit public figures (the NRA is a corporate person and certainly a public figure) from recovering damages for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED), if the emotional distress was caused by a caricature, parody, or satire of the public figure that a reasonable person would not have interpreted as factual. Most people who see these billboards understand that the claim being made is not literally true, but an exaggeration, a parody, designed to make a political point. And political speech is probably the most protected form of speech there is in our democracy.
In
Sullivan, the Supreme Court established the actual malice standard, which has to be met before press reports about public officials can be considered to be libel; and hence allowed free reporting of the civil rights campaigns in the southern United States. It is one of the key decisions supporting the freedom of the press. The actual malice standard requires that the plaintiff in a defamation case, if that person is a public official or public figure (the NRA as a corporate person is certainly a public figure), prove that the publisher of the statement in question knew that the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Because of the extremely high burden of proof on the plaintiff, and the difficulty of proving the defendant's knowledge and intentions, such claims by public figures rarely prevail.
It is worth noting that
in both cases the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of free speech. In one case (Sullivan) liberals dominated; in the other (Falwell) conservatives controlled the majority. It made no difference in either case because all of the justices ruled unanimously to protect dissent and the First Amendment.
So, if you want to sue Mad Dog PAC for paying for anti-NRA billboards, go ahead and waste your money and your energy, money and energy that would be better spent, IMO, advancing the NRA's efforts to protect the Second Amendment.
And it probably wouldn't hurt your case either to stop claiming, without proof, that George Soros is at the heart of every cause with which you do not agree. If you have proof that George Soros is funding Mad Dog PAC, let's see it. Otherwise, I would suggest finding a more credible line of attack against the people with whom you disagree.
