JUXTAPOSE!

Currently, people who support Rebel News, which is unabashedly right-wing and literally engages in political activism and petitions and boycotts to demean and denigrate political opponents and have them fired, are defending the dismissal of radio host Ryan Jespersen because he apparently got political.

Wherein Ezra Levant simply lied to the court about what I said.

While I'll be posting some new material on my upcoming dishonesty-soaked defamation trial against Ezra Levant, it's worth taking a trip down memory lane and recalling how Ezra blatantly flat-out lied to the court in his Statement of Claim (and subsequent Reply) about what I published about his 2016 fundraiser, a bucket of pure dishonesty I disemboweled almost two years ago. Go ahead and read it; I'll wait.

Dum de dum dum ...

Ah, you're back, with what I hope is a new appreciation for how Ezra's defamation action against me is -- how shall I put this diplomatically -- a pack of lies. As you can read at that blog post, I collected all of Ezra's lies about me, and refuted them by performing a comprehensive search against my own Twitter timeline, looking not only for those words or phrases, but for any variation of them (just so I could not be accused of cherry picking to get the results I want). And you can see the results.

Sadly, the monstrously inept motions judge had absolutely no interest in any of this, as you can see at that blog post. Seriously, I might as well have not even filed a defense, so utterly uninterested she was in anything I submitted as evidence.

I can assure you, that level of disinterest is not going to happen at trial. I guarantee it, regardless of what Ezra or his pompous, bloviating gasbag of a lawyer have to say.

Jawohl, mein Fuhrer!

EZRA: "Keean, we're running low on cash ... go out there and get beat up by a senior citizen." 

KEEAN: "On it."

BONUS TRACK: Within the first 60 seconds of the video you can view here, Rebel's Keean Bexte is told quite clearly to fuck off twice, and he continues to harass and calls his interviewee "stupid." That little neo-Nazi shit had it coming.

The chronicles of Twatrick: The Patrick Ross saga.

As a number of people have asked me about this privately in the last little while, I will now bring all and sundry up to date regarding my now decade-long legal interaction with one Patrick Ross (self-proclaimed "Outlaw Tory" on social media and, in his own mind, the baddest dood on the Intertoobz).

It was more than 10 years ago that I sued Patrick Ross for defamation, whereupon Patrick smugly refused to even submit a defense and I was awarded a sizable default judgment:

After much chasing of Patrick around Alberta and Saskatchewan, rather than own up to his financial obligations, Patrick chose to file for personal bankruptcy, after which he did absolutely nothing to live up to his responsibilities under the bankruptcy regime, whereupon earlier this year I filed to have Patrick kicked out of bankruptcy, whereupon the Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench was happy to oblige, in a ruling you can read here at the Facebook page of my old drinking buddy Dr. Dawg.

If you don't have the patience to read the whole thing, these two paragraphs would seem to sum up the overall tenor of the ruling (the conversion from PDF to text seems to have been less than perfect):

In short, the court system was, as you can see from the above ruling, more than fed up with Patrick's cavalier use of personal bankruptcy to protect himself while having not the slightest interest in living up to his responsibilities as a bankrupt, and has booted his ass out the door so that my original 2010 judgment of $85,000 is now back on the table and fully enforceable, and I have instructed my lawyer to begin the process of collecting the full and entire amount.

It is worth pointing out that the original judgment from back in 2010 has been increasing at a rate of 2 per cent per year so that, once one adds in a few thousand dollars in costs levied against him over the years, Patrick now owes me in the neighbourhood of $110,000 (CAD), and I have every intention of collecting every fucking penny of that. (It is also worth mentioning that, as long as Patrick dawdles in dealing with this, that amount will simply increase at the aforementioned rate of 2 per cent per year until it is paid off in its entirety.)

One final point. If history is any indicator, Patrick will once again dodge and weave and make himself hard to find. If that is the case, I have been assured that I have recourse to the Saskatchewan provincial Sheriffs, who can be tasked with the collection process, all of which would be done entirely at Patrick's expense. So if Patrick thinks he's going to continue to play the same childish games he's been playing for the last several years, someone should tell him the bad news.

I have been patient for almost a decade, and I am now out of patience. If Patrick Ross refuses to deal with this like a grown-up and accept his financial obligations, then he can explain it to the Sheriffs who show up at his residence to start taking his stuff. And that's all I have to say about that.

P.S. It's worth truly appreciating the situation Patrick finds himself in. Due to his relentless and arrogant non-compliance with the obligations of bankruptcy from the beginning, Patrick's own trustee discharged himself back in February of 2014, which means that, for the last several years, Patrick has been an undischarged bankrupt without a trustee. This means that, even if Patrick wanted to start paying off the conditional discharge order as ordered from back in late 2014, he would be utterly unable to do so as there is no trustee to pay it to.

Far worse, though, is that, technically, Patrick Ross is still bankrupt and will remain in that state in perpetuity until he pays off his entire debt to me, which -- as I have explained above -- the court has now ruled is entirely enforceable. In short, Patrick Ross now has to live with all the restrictions of being a bankrupt, with none of its protections. This is what you would call "the worst of all possible worlds," and it is entirely a world of Patrick's own making.

P.P.S. There is no possibility of Patrick appealing the above ruling as it is now long past the deadline for doing so. In case you were wondering.

P.P.P.S. You might want to check back here occasionally in case there are further updates.

BONUS TRACK: There is a certain irony watching smarmy right-wing gasbags like Patrick Ross lecture others on allegedly conservative values like "accountability" and "personal responsibility" and denigrate the principles of "socialism," only to flee sobbing into the protection of taxpayer-funded bankruptcy rather than deal with the consequences of their actions.

But I'm sure you already knew that, right?

Just when you think Rebel News has reached the bottom of the barrel, ...

... someone comes along and lifts up the barrel. Having once hawked Rebel Media YouTube subscriptions with the coupon code "Broncos" (piggybacking off of the horrific bus crash that killed so many members of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team):

Rebel News' David Menzies now gives you this one-time-only chance to shell out cash for "Covid Collectibles":

Because even if Grandma is in the ICU on a ventilator, these buttons are going fast.

Call now.

JUXTAPOSE!

Wealthy Bay Street lawyer Erin O'Toole appeals to working class folks by attacking and denigrating "elites" ...

COVID-19 is a bitch.

Erin O'Toole is not aging well ...

Racists gonna racist.

I'm shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that the systemically racist RCMP have no interest in laying charges against violent racists.

True North Centre: Hypocrisy at its finest.

Here's right-wing screech harpy Candice Malcolm, vowing that her minty-fresh and utterly talentless Independent Press Gallery will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever take government handouts or bailouts or assistance:

Here's Candice Malcolm's equally talentless True North Centre, promising the same level of financial independence from the evil that is government:

And here's True North Centre being a registered "charity" under Canada Revenue Agency rules, which allows it to issue charitable tax receipts to donors.

So much for that "We're too noble to leech off the government!" nonsense.

AFTERSNARK: As Press Progress points out, the journalistic septic tank that is True North Centre is a registered charity, perhaps based on its claim that it is offering services to immigrants. If one visits the CRA detail page for TNC:

one is puzzled by the revelation that this "charity" has been operating since 1994 -- somewhat unlikely unless Malcolm registered it when she was a teenager. So it's safe to conclude that Malcolm, in some way, simply co-opted or inherited an actual functioning charity and rebranded it, while still sucking up taxpayer dollars in the way of handing out tax receipts to donors.

In any event, it's clear that running a charity that allegedly offers assistance to immigrants but is, in reality, a right-wing propaganda outlet is delightfully lucrative:

JUXTAPOSE! Candice Malcolm, who clearly makes a delicious living leeching off the government, will now lecture you on the evil that is universal basic income:

Check back next week when Malcolm, who lives in California, will shriek relentlessly about the socialistic, Marxist Communism of Canadian public health care.

The Post-Millennial, Russia connections and rage bait: The state of Canada's right-wing nut jobs.

Right Wing Watch's Jared Holt lays it out for you.

BONUS TRACK: Holt has a short Twitter thread on the valueless cesspool that is The Post Millennial.

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT: I vaguely recall reading somewhere that The Post Millennial is one of the journalistic crapfests that is part of Candice Malcolm's pathetically self-serving "Independent Press Gallery of Canada", which is little more than some of Canada's most worthless, right-wing media outlets who think calling themselves a "press gallery" will automatically give them accreditation to get into legitimate press conferences.

What is odd is that one can peruse the IPG's web site at length without learning who is currently a member, so it would be fascinating if someone could supply a membership list, or at least point an interested investigator at how one could determine such a thing. The lack of transparency makes one just a wee bit uneasy.

It ain't defamation if there's no reputation.

For those wondering about my recent blog posts establishing, beyond any doubt, Ezra Levant's widespread reputation as a scumbag, piece of shit, grifter, scam artist, huckster, con artist, and so much more (some yet to come as, trust me, we've barely started here), it's time to make yourself comfortable so I can explain what the point of all that is. The point is actually quite simple: defamation law in Canada is fundamentally rooted in the idea that defamation requires one's reputation to have been injured, damaged or tarnished, and if there is no damage to reputation, there is -- ipso facto -- no defamation. Isn't that something? So why does this matter?

A good deal of this philosophizing is inspired by this delightful paper by one Dr. Hilary Young, who argues quite compellingly that there is far too little attention paid to whether defamation actually exists if there is no obvious injury to reputation. As Young writes early on:

The test for prima facie defamation has been phrased in a number of ways; Gatley notes that “[t]here is no wholly satisfactory definition of a defamatory imputation”,and that “it is probable that not all the cases are reconcilable with a single principle”. The most commonly cited test is whether the words have “a tendency...to lower [the plaintiff] in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally and in particular to cause him to be regarded with feelings of hatred, contempt, ridicule, fear, dislike, or disesteem”

What does this mean? Well, in my humble opinion, it means first that the entire legal profession has been unforgivably lazy in not actually considering this fundamental requirement for something to be defamation before launching itself boldly into simply accepting that talking smack about someone is automatically defamation and yammering on endlessly about defenses like justification and fair comment and on and on and tediously on, when a simpler approach might have been to start with the above test to see if there was any defamation to begin with.

Note well the implications of the above -- rather than automatically accepting that something is defamatory, then spending 87 gazillion dollars arguing defenses, the above suggests that it should be entirely possible to argue that there was no conceivable damage to reputation, at which point the action should be over. Done. Finito. That is precisely what the above suggests, and Young's paper suggests that maybe too little attention is paid to this strategy, which would save everyone buckets of time and money. So let's look at this in a bit more detail, shall we?

To argue that there is no damage to reputation, one must first define the word "reputation," which any decent dictionary will tell you is "the beliefs or opinions that are generally held about someone or something." In other words (and this is important), you do not get to define your own reputation; rather, it is defined by others. Make damned sure you understand that properly -- if I want to establish your reputation about something, I have no need to ask you; rather, I would ask everyone else, because it is everyone else's opinion about you that defines your reputation. We need an example.

Say someone describes Ezra Levant publicly as a "grifter," and Ezra -- being the whiny, delicate snowflake that he is -- jumps up and down and screams that he has been defamed. According to the general understanding of defamation as explained above, for that to be defamation, it would be necessary for calling Ezra a "grifter" to have, in some way, injured or damaged his reputation, such that right-thinking members of society would tend to think less of him. But here's Ezra's problem.

As I have already established, Ezra already has a universal reputation as a grifter. There is no question about that, and that was established simply by checking around to see what other people think. There was absolutely no need to check with Ezra about this since, as we have already established, it is other people who define your reputation, so it is only other people whose opinions are relevant. See how that works? In other words, based on a straightforward reading of Canadian defamation law, calling Ezra Levant a "grifter" cannot possibly constitute defamation since that is already his reputation. And, as one can see above, the same can be said about characterizing Ezra as a con man, scam artist, scumbag, huckster and piece of shit. No damage to reputation? Ergo, by definition, no defamation. But it gets better, and you'll want to pay attention to this next part.

In a typical defamation trial, if one wants to yammer on about the defamitude of the accusation "grifter," one normally hears bloviating like "Oh, yeah, what's your proof that he's a grifter?" or "Do you have any evidence that he's a grifter?", etc, etc. Hilariously, none of that is relevant here for a perfectly obvious reason.

There is nothing about the definition of the word "reputation" that requires it to be fair, or accurate, or warranted. Not in the slightest possible way. The requirement for something to be defamation, as described above, is that it must, in some way, injure reputation; whether or not that reputation is accurate has nothing to do with it. So, when this case eventually goes to trial in early 2036, and Ezra's bloviating gasbag of a lawyer shrieks, "Where's your proof of my client being a grifter?", the simple slapback will be, "I don't have to prove any of that; it is simply his reputation, as I have established."

More concisely, in context of this argument, one does not have to prove that Ezra is a grifter; one need show only that he has a reputation as a grifter (a much simpler task which I have already done).

Is that delightful or what?

SIDE NOTE: It is worth pointing out that my having established Ezra Levant's reputation as a grifter, con man, huckster and on and on will not just be useful for me; all of that is now available to anyone who Ezra tries to intimidate with another wretchedly dishonest SLAPP suit, which means that all of my time and effort spent on those earlier blog posts is now available free of charge for anyone else who might find it useful.

You're welcome. But we're not quite done.

Some readers are surely thinking, "Well, sure, you proved that some people think Ezra is a grifter, but he'll argue that other people don't, so how do you respond to that?" An excellent question, with a couple responses.

First, note well how the definition of defamation requires that the reputation of the plaintiff must be lowered in the eyes of "right-thinking" members of society, and it's relatively safe to say that most people who idolize Ezra Levant are part of a particular demographic that can be described as, well, you know, morons. And even though that is a defensible argument to make, there is one that is not quite so facetious.

Of course there will be people who think Ezra walks on the Sea of Galilee without water wings, but it's safe to say that those people will continue to believe that no matter what, just as people who are convinced Ezra is a sleazy con man and opportunistic grifter are not going to change their opinions. Put another way, even if there is a massive split on Ezra's reputation as a grifter, it would be easy to argue that none of those peoples' opinion would change in any meaningful way at this point. People who think Ezra is a shining star of probity will continue to believe that, while others convinced that he is a sleazebag of the highest order will continue to believe that. In short, it's highly unlikely, at this point, that any opinions of Ezra Levant are going to be changed. By definition, then, no change to reputation and, therefore, no defamation.

So why hasn't this strategy been used far more widely? Why is it that the legal system appears to be so unspeakably lazy that so few people make this argument that could short-circuit frivolous and obvious SLAPP actions? I will hazard a guess. It's because, for normal plaintiffs, it's probably difficult to establish so clearly the lack of damage to reputation, so everyone just shrugs, agrees that the utterances were by definition defamatory, and moves on to defenses. But what if one has a truly special plaintiff?

What if the plaintiff is the sleazy, bottom-dwelling, opportunistic grifter and scam artist Ezra Levant, for whom a reputation can be established by a simple search of social media? What if the plaintiff is someone who has, over the years, deliberately and explicitly cultivated a reputation as an "outspoken provocateur and troublemaker", even using that reputation as part of a legal defense when he was being sued:

In finding for plaintiff Khurrum Awan, who was at the time an Osgoode Hall law student, the judge also rejected a defence, put forward by Levant's lawyers, that their client's reputation as an "outspoken provocateur and troublemaker" would preclude most reasonable people from taking his defamatory statements literally.

While arguing about lack of damage to reputation might not work with most plaintiffs, it seems that this argument is exactly what one wants to put on the table when dealing with a vile, loathsome, reprehensible piece of human garbage such as Ezra Levant. And I can assure you, all of that will be on the table. And I've barely started.

P.S. Feel free to contribute to my fundraiser, and I will continue to post info that I think others will find useful.

AFTERSNARK: It's worth pointing out that the above is just another strategy I'll be bringing up at trial, along with Ezra's failure to serve me with a Notice of Libel, Ezra's openly bragging to an ex-Rebel Media hack that he sued me specifically to tie me up in court for five years, and his admissions that all of my criticisms of his 2016 Indiegogo fundraiser were, in fact, totally accurate.

Gonna be an interesting trial.

IRONY OF IRONIES: It is more than a little amusing that Ezra, even as he was insisting that my simply pointing out the obvious financial flaws in his 2016 fundraiser so egregiously damaged his reputation that only $95,000 could console him, was, at the very same time, arguing to the court that he should not be held responsible for his own defamation of Khurrum Awan for the reason that (wait for it ... wait for it ...) his own reputation for accuracy and integrity was so valueless that no reasonable, right-thinking person would take him seriously:

You read that correctly -- a major part of Ezra's defense as a defendant in a defamation action was that no one should take him seriously given his utter lack of reputation.

I can assure you that position will be front and centre when this case goes to trial.