Fani Willis, currently starring as Javert in the Fulton County dinner-theatre production of Les Magarables, took the stand yesterday. It was an arresting turn:
FANI WILLIS: "Where's Belize? What continent? I'm not being funny. I don't know. I've been to Belize with him. I've been to The Bahamas with him. I've been to Aruba with him. Don't embarrass me. I'm not sure what continents those are on." pic.twitter.com/Cs1sGFT5je
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 15, 2024
Well, you can't really blame someone in Georgia for not knowing the Bahamas are in Antarctica. On the other hand, Florida is a contiguous state...
"We didn't go to Florida together," says Fani Willis.
Then immediately adds, "apart from Miami."
Lmao, she's the dumbest.
— Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) February 15, 2024
I would have said that District Attorney Willis is the worst witness since ...well, a fortnight ago, when Michael E Mann proved incapable of getting his lost grant funding right to within nine-and-a-half million dollars. Still, that worked out just peachy for Mann, so maybe it will for Ms Willis...
~Speaking of saving the planet, here are some climate activists desecrating the US Constitution, while the officials entrusted with its care stand around doing nothing:
BREAKING: Climate activists just ruined the display of the Constitution in the Rotunda of the National Archives in DC. They poured red powder on themselves and the display.
Security stands around doing nothing for minutes until they finally get arrested. pic.twitter.com/bXggSHgl4T
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 14, 2024
That's our world in a nutshell: One could make the case that, in the ever more expansive definitions of American "law", an assault on the very constitution is a kind of "insurrection", is it not? But, as those security guards demonstrate, the forces of the state get instinctively that in the scheme of things they and the desecrators are on the same side. Unlike the J6 trespassers, the vandals have no fear of two years in solitary before a rigged trial.
~Oh, and here are some more climate activists desecrating the US Constitution, while the (judicial) officials entrusted with its care sit around doing nothing:
A Slap Shot Against Climate Denial
Eight days ago, a DC jury decided that climate mullah Michael E Mann was entitled to one dollar in "actual damages" and $1,000 in "punitive damages" from Rand Simberg and another dollar in "actual damages" plus a million in "punitive" from yours truly. So Mann will be collecting a grand total of $1,001,002.00, right?
Well, that's what The Washington Post, The New York Times and the rest of America's wanker media (all noticeably absent from the courtroom) would have you believe.
As it happens, Rand Simberg's lawyers have filed a motion demanding Judge Irving correct his "final judgment":
1. On June 22, 2020, the Court (Judge Anderson) granted Defendant Competitive Enterprise Institute and Rand Simberg's Motion for Payment of Expenses because Plaintiff failed to produce responsive documents and other information to Defendants' discovery requests. The Defendants were forced to file a motion to compel to obtain this discovery, which the Court granted... The Court also found it reasonable to award Defendants' fees and costs incurred in litigating the motion to compel in the amount of $9,588.64...
2. On February 9, 2024, this Court entered a Final Judgment Order in the amount $1,001 against Defendant Rand Simberg and did not include the sanctions award of $9,588.64 against Plaintiff from the Order by Judge Anderson. This omission should be corrected.
Indeed. So the net result of Mann vs Simberg is that Mann owes Simberg $8,587.64. Pay up, you deadbeat. (For more unpaid legal fees by Big Climate tosspots, see here.)
As to the million bucks I supposedly owe Mann, Judge Anderson - the "fourth trial judge" - also ruled in her 2020 order (Appendix A, page four):
Furthermore, to obtain punitive damages as Plaintiff wishes here, Plaintiff must establish he has suffered compensable harm as a prerequisite to the recovery of additional punitive damages. Linn v. United Plant Guard Workers of Am., Local 114, 383 U.S. 53, 66 (1966); see Intercity Maint. Co. v. Local 254, Serv. Employees Int'l Union AFL-CIO, 241 F.3d 82, 90 (1st Cir. 2001) ("no punitive damages may be awarded absent evidence of actual damages."). Establishing compensable harm requires proving the elements set forth above.
Absent "actual damages", every penny of that million bucks the jury ordered me to pay Mann is unlawful. The only question is whether the "fifth trial judge" (only in America!) strikes it down now, or makes me spend another five mil taking it to the Supreme Court to throw out. After twelve years in the dank septic tank of DC justice, I think I know the way to bet.
~In that clip above, District Attorney Willis, asked if she had been to Australia with her paramour, replies: "I don't even wanna go to Australia." Chacun à son goût and all that, but I would love to go to to Australia, with or without Fani Willis. The Aussie Spectator has had some of the best coverage of my recent travails, and in striking contrast to the London head office. Hard to improve on this headline:
US justice stinks
What more need be said? Thank you and goodnight, you've been a terrific audience. But James Allan is warming to his theme:
The US justice system is woefully bad. Let me be clear. It seriously stinks. At the federal level some 98 per cent of accused are convicted – a laughably embarrassing figure for any democracy. Almost all of those are convictions without trial where the Feds have basically threatened you with five hundred years in jail or you cut a deal, plead guilty and take a tolerably low sentence. (And for all those who say 'Well, you should never plead guilty if you didn't do it' I point out that they also cut deals with all sorts of others who have to testify against you and fighting the charges will bankrupt you and your family even if you win and only the über-brave can withstand this treatment.)
Next up Down Under is Kerry Wakefield on "The Sinister Steyn Verdict":
Don't question us, ever – you won't win, there'll be years of legal torture and then you'll be whacked with a one-million-dollar bill at the end of it. That's the takeaway from the peculiar jury verdict in the Mann v. Steyn defamation trial concerning that icon of 20th-century global warming alarmism, Professor Michael Mann's hockey stick graph.
Mann's lawyer John Williams gave the game away in his final remarks to the jury, with what amounted to a call to arms to defend the climate change faith. Having linked Trumpish election-deniers to science-deniers, Williams then said: '...you can set an amount not just to punish, but to serve as an example to prevent others from acting in... a same or similar way. These attacks on climate scientists have to stop, and you now have the opportunity....' After objections, the judge reminded Williams that this was a defamation case, not a climate science case. Former top lawyer and court observer John Hinderaker later blasted, 'In 41 years of trying cases to juries, I never heard such an outrageously improper appeal.'
But Counsellor Williams knew what he was doing, and at that critical moment Judge Irving lost control of his own courtroom. Back to James Allan:
But this is DC. The plaintiff's lawyer in his closing argument asked the jury, regardless of everything else, to award exemplary damages to, in effect, silence these global warming sceptics. No judge in Australia or Canada – not even one appointed by Dan Andrews – would allow a lawyer to appeal for exemplary damages even though the legal requirements otherwise to win the case had not been met. It would have been a directed verdict for Steyn. But the jury came back and awarded Mann one dollar in actual damages (against Steyn and his co-defendant), a deadly verdict in jurisdictions with a costs rule and in effect a decision that Steyn was right. But then the jury also awarded Mann one million dollars in exemplary damages – basically deciding that regardless of everything else Steyn is not free to speak about this issue and sending a clear message to anyone who wants to voice doubts about 'end of the world climate scaremongering'. Of course if Steyn appeals it would be in the (non-federal) DC system with huge numbers of federal bureaucrats operating under regulatory policies that create a near-perfect set-up to get dissidents. Good luck with that. Only the US Supreme Court can save him and odds are they won't touch it. So Steyn is probably bankrupted. Mann gets a big PR boost. And the legacy press (so yes, the ABC) will treat the verdict as something other than a bad joke. I'll be blunt. This is a very sad outcome for Mark Steyn who is and has been a free speech warrior for decades and decades.
I'm not sure I agree with Professor Allan on that last bit. The verdict is so brazen that the Supreme Court will have no choice but to "touch it". Of course, they'd have no need to do that if the DC trial court and the appellate court did their job.
~Thank you for all your kind comments this last week - and thank you especially to all those new members of The Mark Steyn Club, and those old members who've signed up a chum for a SteynOnline Gift Certificate or a Steyn Club Gift Membership. Steyn Clubbers span the globe, across the dozens of continents Fani Willis professes no knowledge of, from London, Ontario to London, England to London, Kiribati. I stagger on to the Mark Steyn Cruise, and thereafter the English High Court, for my stand against the Covid vaccine propaganda. If I make it through the next few weeks, we hope to welcome many more new members in the decades ahead.
