And is it libellous to say so? I ask because a friend recalls this medieval definition of libel from his days as a law student at Oxford:
Ye may say that a woman be a whore and that be not libellous. Ye may say that a woman be poxy-arsed and that be not libellous. But to say that a woman be a poxy-arsed whore that be libellous for you do injure her in her profession.
Now we all know there’s a federal class-action lawsuit coming to trial, filed by victims of Donald Trump and his so-called Trump University. We also know that Trump U. employees have testifed in written depositions that Trump U. was, in the words of one of them, “a fraudulent scheme” designed to bilk people who signed up for courses costing as much as $35,000. And we all know that a) Trump’s profession was chief salesman — in other words, the pimp in chief — for the now-defunct enterprise, and b) 
that he claims it will continue to be his profession when the trial is over, because he says he will revive the venture.
So there’s no question about the whoring part of the equation. But since that medieval definition of liable means “the injured party has to show actual damage or loss,” would Trump make the case that he’s been libelled because he’s been injured in his profession? In which case he’d have to cop to being a whore?
Furthermore, isn’t it a “long-established principle of libel law” that “truth is an absolute defense” against libel? (I thought so, until I came across this reference to a decision by a federal appeals court in Boston, in 2009, calling that long-established defense into question:
The court ruled in the case of Noonan v. Staples that truth published with “actual malice” gleaned from the context of the statement can give rise to a libel lawsuit. The case threatens to muzzle both news and entertainment media, and could be particularly dangerous to independent bloggers and small startup news organizations — neither of which is likely to have the legal resources a traditional established news organization has to battle libel suits.
Uh-oh.)
Meantime, the legal aspect of this blogpost may be moot. I asked another friend who covers the U.S. Supreme Court for a major newspaper whether he knew of the medieval definition I’ve quoted and, if so, where it comes from. “Haven’t seen that anywhere,” he says. “Sounds apocryphal to me, because as this book points out, prostitution was illegal anyway so you couldn’t really injure the reputation of a criminal.”
Hmmmm.
William Osborne replies:
Trump doesn’t like what the media says about him:
“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. We’re going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.”
Imagine if we had a law that punished politicians if they didn’t tell the truth. Remember those supposed WMDs in Iraq and how now about a million people are dead and 3 million displaced because of the falsely justified war that ensued? Remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident? Remember “Remember the Maine” in Cuba? Remember the Freedom Fighters in El Salvador? Lying is the very fabric of America’s existence and that is exactly why we have Trump as a Presidential candidate.
Basically our whole society is complicit in this lying.
Trump doesn’t like what the media says about him:
“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. We’re going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.”
Imagine if we had a law that punished politicians if they didn’t tell the truth. Remember those supposed WMDs in Iraq and how now about a million people are dead and 3 million displaced because of the falsely justified war that ensued? Remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident? Remember “Remember the Maine” in Cuba? Remember the Freedom Fighters in El Salvador? Lying is the very fabric of America’s existence and that is exactly why we have Trump as a Presidential candidate.
Basically our whole society is complicit in this lying.