Greetings from America's diseased and depraved capital city on Day Three of Mann vs Simberg and Steyn in Courtroom 518 of the District of Columbia Superior Court. That's me at right leaving the courthouse at the end of Day Two and ready to stab my eyeballs out. Judge Irving had to call over seventy jurors in order to find six plus four alternates willing to do impartial justice. But we have them! And today, after half-an-hour of procedural folderol, the jury will be seated and opening statements will begin.
Here at SteynOnline, my friend and former publicist Amy K Mitchell presents her daily Court Report every evening, and Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer are broadcasting dramatised reconstructions of key moments in the proceedings. Simply click below for their take on the second day:
One of our GB News vax-victim friends, Wayne Cunnington, is not impressed by The Guardian's take:
What a spurious piece in the Guardian about the Mann Vs Mark Steyn "defamation" case which is clear to me really about propping up the climate "change" narrative in a decades long fight to drive the bigger picture of climate alarmism and to trash one of the litigation targets in... pic.twitter.com/nl9ctvPpz2
— Wayne Cunnington (@waynetlc) January 18, 2024
Oh, come now, Wayne. Global warming is serious business. In Washington, even in the midst of an alleged polar vortex, we are mindful that at any moment it could be a lot hotter:
Remember all those fires in Canada?
Quebec climate change activist pleads guilty to starting 14 fireshttps://t.co/R5hwr9e3lF
— ❣️Anne❣️ (@USA_Anne711) January 16, 2024
Yesterday, as you can hear above, Phelim McAleer himself became the subject of a Court motion, when Mann's counsel John B Williams attempted to have him thrown out for lèse-majesté:
That's routine at the end of any trial day. Ask my old boss Conrad Black; ask the frostbitten todger himself, the Duke of Sussex. Ask me. But Mr Williams told a pack of lies to the court, and the judge seemed minded to indulge him. So I spoke up, as you can hear in Ann and Phelim's show, on behalf of open public justice - and thus, for the moment, Mr McAleer is permitted to remain.
A more serious interference with the judicial process came from Mann's longtime chum, the children's telly personality and faintly creepy Bill Nye The Science Guy. Mr Nye turned up, rather oddly, while the court was closed to the public for voir dire. So instead he went and hung out among the jury pool, and after a moment or two some or other prospective juror said, "Hey, you came to my school when I was in Grade Five!" or some such and "The Science Guy" responded, "Yeah, I'm a good friend of Mike Mann's!"
Hmm.
Yet again, I was pretty wiped out by the end of the day, but I didn't have that fourth heart attack, so I consider that a good day.
We thank everyone who's signed up for one of our limited-edition trial souvenirs: The SteynOnline Liberty Stick - which features both Magna Carta and the US Constitution. So far, nobody in this town seems to have heard of the latter, so we may be introducing an entirely new concept. Every stick is signed and numbered by yours truly - and is made in the USA.
