Tuesday, October 13, 2020

"Correct the record!" Actually, I did.

As regular readers will know by now, given that I lost my anti-SLAPP action against Ezra Levant due to the crippling stupidity, incompetence and embarrassing disinterest on the part of a number of Ontario judges, we will be going to actual trial one of these years, and here's one reason why Ezra should be more than a little concerned.

A fundamental part of Ezra's massively dishonest 2016 defamation suit against me involves his claim that, even when I knew better, I refused to (as he worded it) "correct the record" involving, among other things, the fact that he quietly arranged for some type of "personal financing" to beat the May 31, 2016 deadline for turning over donations to be matched. I suspect this is going to be a problem for Ezra when this topic comes up at trial, for the following reason that I believe neither he nor his wretched, bloviating gasbag of a lawyer are aware of.

After saying nothing for the entire month of May, 2016 about how he would be able to get access to all of the funds in his Indiegogo fundraiser in time to beat the deadline, it was only on June 1, 2016 (pretty much at the very end of his fundraiser) that Ezra made the astonishing admission that he had ... well, let's let Ezra's June 1, 2016 tweet speak for itself, shall we?

That would be Ezra, admitting for the very first time that he had arranged some mysterious form of "financing" to beat the matching deadline for turning over funds to the Red Cross for matching, and politely asking me to "correct the record." Six days later, Ezra sued me, in major part for not "correcting the record." And here's his problem:

That would be me, only three days after Ezra announced his mysterious financing, doing exactly that -- publicly correcting someone else on Twitter by repeating exactly what Ezra had claimed three days earlier. In other words, as everyone can clearly see, I had in fact "corrected the record" on June 4.

Three days later, Ezra sued.

It will be entertaining to watch Ezra, on the stand and under oath, insist that I refused to correct the record, when I can produce uncontested evidence that I did exactly that and that he is clearly lying about it.

Yes, it's going to be an interesting trial.

AFTERSNARK: The other fundamental underpinning of Ezra's defamation action against me is his absolute insistence that I refused to "correct the record" regarding whether donors to his misleading and deceptive Indiegogo fundraiser would be getting charitable tax receipts. 

Despite the fact that Ezra never, ever, at any time, provided proof that such tax receipts would be forthcoming (and, to this day, I have never seen any such evidence from any source), I persisted in asking the Red Cross about this, and they finally, on June 6, 2016, admitted that they were capable of issuing tax receipts in such cases, as long as they were provided with full donor amount and contact information. As soon as I learned that, I posted the following overly-generous correction of the record on June 6 and early June 7:


As even the minimally literate can appreciate, on both June 6 and the morning of June 7 of 2016, I clearly and publicly conceded (after being told by the Red Cross and never by Ezra himself) that it appeared donors would be getting tax receipts. Ezra delivered his Statement of Claim denying I had ever corrected the record on the afternoon of that same day.

Getting Ezra on the stand and forcing him to admit that I had indeed "corrected the record" is going to be some kind of entertaining.

THIS IS IMPORTANT, SO PAY ATTENTION: There is a bigger picture issue here that I don't think a lot of folks understand, so I'm going to explain it and you need to pay attention to truly appreciate the sleaziness and dishonesty and rank opportunism of Ezra's piece-of-shit defamation lawsuit against me.

As I have explained in gruesome detail on previous occasions, it was on June 1 and June 5 of 2016 (and at no time earlier) that Ezra Levant, on Twitter, insisted that I was wrong in my claims about his fundraiser, and that I should "correct the record." There was no demand of deletion of Tweets, or any suggestion of legal action whatsoever; just a surprisingly civil insistence that I was wrong about things and that I should admit it and "correct the record."

As I'm sure you can read above, it was on June 4, 2016 that I repeated Ezra's (subsequently debunked) claim that he had succeeded in getting all donations to his fundraiser matched via some mysterious "financing"; as I have already explained on numerous occasions, Ezra fell spectacularly short in what he turned over, to the tune of over $60,000, but that is neither here not there. The point is that I had clearly "corrected the record" by repeating Ezra's claim about using some weird form of financing to effect the matching of donations.

As one can also read above, on June 6 and June 7, I further "corrected the record" regarding tax receipts, but only after I had had confirmation from the Red Cross itself, not from Ezra, but that's not the point I'm working toward here. What's critically important is that, in those two later tweets, I clearly and unambiguously stated that I had more information that I would be providing. And what was that upcoming information? We'll never know, because that's when Ezra frantically delivered his Statement of Claim on the afternoon of June 7 (later that same day), obviously to shut me up.

Pause with me and consider that astonishing timeline.

After insisting, on June 1 and June 5 of 2016, that I "correct the record," and even while I was, literally, doing exactly that (on June 4, 6, and 7) and announcing that there was more information coming, Ezra Levant -- clearly in the space of only hours -- lashed together a Statement of Claim, suing me for defamation and claiming that I had refused to "correct the record," even as I was obviously in the process of doing precisely that.

Let me represent that timeline in short sentences that even Ezra's gasbag of a lawyer would understand:

  • "Correct the record."
  • "Um, OK, it turns out that ..."
  • "Fuck you, you refused to correct the record so I'm suing."

I can't wait for Ezra to defend that behaviour on the stand in an actual courtroom. It will be something to see.

Saturday, October 03, 2020

The stupid. It burns.

Possibly the dumbest tweet of 2020, and I'm including anything by Candice Malcolm or David Menzies:

 
Well, that didn't last long:
 
Jesus, the dumbassitude.

Friday, October 02, 2020

JUXTAPOSE!

Canadian conservatives, who have relentlessly celebrated visceral hatred and physical assault of Liberals, NDPers, environmentalists, minorities and immigrants, and have cheered the encouragement of the murder of Justin Trudeau, will now lecture us on the rudeness of being moderately indifferent to the health and well-being of Donald Trump.

Just when you thought Rebel News journos couldn't get any stupider ...


JUXTAPOSE!

Conservatives: "As unabashed fans of Donald Trump, we are totally on-board with gassing protesters, shooting black people and putting children in cages!"

Also conservatives: "Liberals are such unsympathetic assholes."


I call bullshit on Trump having coronavirus.

I would bet various internal organs that this is his sleazy way of dodging any more debates, now that his advisers have finally educated him on how badly he did. How about we all watch for how mild his symptoms turn out to be, and how quickly he recovers after the debate period.

P.S. Piers Morgan can go fuck himself.


Thursday, October 01, 2020

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

 

Grifters gonna grift: Millie Weaver edition.

Regular voyeurs might remember ex-Infowars huckster Millie Weaver, who shrieked hysterically about being a victim of the nefarious, sinister "Deep State" when, in reality, her arrest back in August of this year had a much more mundane explanation, as so delightfully explained by Frank magazine.

Despite Weaver being arrested for simple assault and burglary and other unexciting felonies like that, that didn't stop one Ezra Levant from immediately registering a Gofundme fundraiser, whereupon Weaver raked in a cool $175,000 (CAD), despite the obviously misleading pretext of the fundraiser and no subsequent attempt by any of the fundraiser's administrators to un-mislead people.

Fast forward to September 17 (long after it was obvious why Weaver had been taken into custody), whereupon we find Team Member and Rebel News staffer Eitan Gilboord wrapping things up with one more update before clearly wanting to put this whole thing behind him and move on to the next grift:


Notable about the above update is a total absence of any admission that the fundraiser was established on an utterly unsubstantiated pretext, or any explanation as to why Weaver's law firm would need $175,000 given that Weaver's mother had already assured all and sundry that she was dropping the charges.

Perhaps some enterprising journo might want to look into this. It looks like it could be a story but, hey, that's just me.

AFTERSNARK: It's amusing how Rebel News' Gilboord insists that the fundraiser was for the purpose of "protecting ... conservative journalists from false arrest" when the actual indictment has been publicly available for a month and explained the basis for the arrest pretty clearly:

More developments currently developing so stay tuned ...

HERE'S WHAT PUZZLES ME: As you can read above, the fundraiser organizers are adamant that Weaver is the victim of a "false arrest," and the general intimation is that she was the target of a "Deep State" program of political harassment, or something like that. But if one claims that something is a "false arrest," that would suggest that there is no basis for the arrest and that, once free, there is no substance to the charges against you. But if that's the case, then what is the necessity for $175,000 to mount a "legal defense?"

Put another way, it's illogical to insist that there is no legal basis for an arrest, yet still insist you need $175,000 to defend against that arrest, and the fundraiser page says absolutely nothing about the basis for the defense, or gives even the slightest clue about what those allegedly politically-motivated charges might be.

This is just really, really weird.

FRAUD? Commenter asks the obvious question -- does running a public fundraiser with such a misleading pretext as Weaver's rise to the level of fraud? To which I will answer ... I am not a lawyer, much less an American lawyer, so I haven't the foggiest and I will not speculate. 

However, regular visitors might recall that back here, that very issue raised its ugly head when a number of contributors who thought they were donating to confront the dark forces of the anti-Trump "Deep State" learned, to their chagrin, that Weaver's arrest clearly had nothing to do with that, and everything to do with simple domestic assault.

Here's one of the original donors, more than a little pissed after having his nose rubbed in reality:

Whether anything came of that, your guess is as good as mine but, tantalizingly, an American journo and authority in this sort of nonsense has assured me that certain authorities are taking a long, hard look at this and other fundraisers. He's promised to keep me updated, as I will do the same for you.

You're welcome.

JUXTAPOSE!

Canada's conservatives: "It's vile and outrageous and reprehensible and disgustingly racist that, 20 years ago, Justin Trudeau wore blackface in a school play!"

Also Canada's conservatives: "Donald Trump racist? Where did you get that idea?" 

AFTERSNARK: I think it's safe to say that, when you "denounce" someone and they adopt your "denunciation" as their new slogan, it's not really a "denunciation."


If you catch my drift.