Greetings from the District of Columbia Superior Court, where, somewhat surprisingly, the alleged polar vortex has failed to postpone the Mann vs Steyn trial by more than a mere thirty minutes. So, instead of 9.30am, the hour of doom is delayed until 10am - at which newly appointed time in Courtroom 518 jury selection will, after twelve years, finally commence. If you're minded to come to court, think twice:
Americans told 'not to breathe deeply or talk' outside as 'deadly' polar vortex causes temperatures to plummet
Kathy Gyngell previews the trial over at The Conservative Woman:
In face of this defamation suit, however, Mark stood by his observation – and has continued to do so since – at great cost to himself in time and money. Steyn, unusual amongst men today, lives by his principles.
We will have the first of our nightly court reports later today at SteynOnline, and Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer will launch their daily trial podcast tomorrow morning. Unless we're all dead from breathing deeply or talking outside. In that case, check out the courthouse livestream (scroll down to Courtroom 518).
~I am not, alas, the most celebrated defamation defendant in court today. Donald Trump will be in the dock for E Jean Carroll's second suit against him - for defaming her after losing to her first time round. But, unlike me, Trump sails into the courthouse with the winds of a fantastic win in Iowa behind him. He racked up over fifty per cent of the vote - which makes his the biggest Iowa-caucus victory for any GOP candidate ever.
A distant thirty points behind, DeSantis managed just to pip Nikki Haley for second place. So much for Mrs Haley having the Big Mo. Nevertheless, she went ahead and read out the speech they'd written for her on the assumption she'd come second - this is now a two-person race between her and Trump. God save us from scripted donor-driven entouraged-to-the-hilt wankery like this.
Having just about fended off her challenge, Ron lives to fight on in New Hampshire, where he's currently polling at six per cent. He's not a nimble campaigner, not at all, so he ended the night, like Nikki, with his own leaden, consultant-crimped speech that reminds you of how worthless are all the conventions of presidential campaigning that Trump steamrollered in 2016.
Ramaswamy finished with a not unimpressive eight per cent of the vote, but has withdrawn and endorsed Trump, who will inherit almost the entirety of his voters.
Meanwhile, back in the real world:
House Republicans Cave to Hunter Biden
There's a surprise.
~If you seek a sane alternative to Michael E Mann's global-warming "hockey stick", there's always our handsome limited-edition trial souvenir: the SteynOnline Liberty Stick, made in the USA and showing both Magna Carta and the US Constitution. They're exclusively available here - and I sign and number each one.
~On Saturday, the pro-Hamas (and pro-Houthi) lads made a pretty impressive attempt to storm the White House:
🚨 BREAKING: Pro-Palestine protesters are attempting to breach the security fencing outside of The White House
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 14, 2024
They damaged the security fence and hurled dangerous objects at police. Yet there was not a single arrest, and Biden's FBI apparently has no plans to spend the next three years hunting down everyone in attendance and throwing the book at them.
I'm sure the Pallies could take Downing Street and Buckingham Palace if they wanted to. Instead, last November 11th, they chose to take Armistice Day and hijack it for their own needs. When the sacked Cabinet Minister Suella Braverman objected to the British constabulary's similar indulgence of these guys, the politico-media class retreated to the "values" card. As James Bowman writes in The New Criterion:
The preponderance of media opinion was better represented by Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of His Majesty's Opposition, who wrote for The Telegraph that "Suella Braverman has set herself against the very values Britain fought for."
I would give a great deal to know what the British dead of the Great War, who are honored specifically on Armistice Day, would have made of this idea of "the very values Britain fought for" according to Sir Keir. Would the right of the Jew-hating demonstrators to spew their poison in the public streets on any day, let alone one of the most solemn days in the calendar of British nationhood, have been among those values? I very much doubt it. Those soldiers seldom or never spoke of fighting for "values" at all. They fought for the honor of king and country—or thought they did—and for their own honor. And who should know better about such things than themselves? Certainly not Sir Keir, whose adherence to respectable political opinion in this instance means that at least he, like Mr. Sunak, cannot be faulted for opportunism.
As for the rights and wrongs of the Hamas-friendly marchers, the great and good Mark Steyn wrote this:
'Whether hijacking Armistice Day should be legal or illegal, it would not, in a healthy polity, be considered seemly. That's why I always quote the otherwise wholly forgotten Lord Moulton, the director-general of the explosives department during the First World War, and his observation that the health of a society is determined not by what is permitted or prevented by law but by what is self-regulated by the citizenry in "the realm of manners." In the realm of manners, the citizenry don't need a law forbidding competing groups from swamping and desecrating Armistice Day because you couldn't find enough people willing to do anything so obviously inappropriate. But multiculti diversity rots out the realm of manners—because the population no longer has enough in common to sustain social cohesion, and so you need an ever bigger and more powerful state to mediate the competing interests of different identity groups.'
I regret that "the realm of manners" shrinks every year in America, Europe and His Majesty's Dominions. "Values" is an ersatz concept that chaps like Sir Keir toss into the ever growing void.
~On this first day of trial, I've been enormously touched by how many readers, listeners and viewers wish to support my free-speech lawsuits on both sides of the Atlantic - over the Big Climate warmatollahs in Washington and against the UK state censor Ofcom in London (coming up in March). Well, there are several ways to lend a hand, including:
a) signing up a friend for a Steyn Club Gift Membership;b) buying a chum a SteynOnline gift certificate;
c) ordering a copy of my latest book, the aforementioned The Prisoner of Windsor (you won't regret it - ask Kathy Gyngell);
d) splashing out on a limited-edition SteynOnline Liberty Stick; or
e) lavishing upon your beloved a once-in-a-lifetime Mark Steyn Caribbean Cruise.
With the first two methods, one hundred per cent of the proceeds goes to a grand cause - and you or your loved one gets something, too.
~Finally, let me thank all the newcomers to our ranks in recent days, from Williamstown to Wokingham, Middlesex to Medicine Hat, Flanders to Florida. We hope to welcome many more of you in the years ahead. For more information on The Mark Steyn Club, see here.
