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On Thursday afternoon, Judge Irving of the DC Superior Court ordered vexatious litigant Michael E. Mann to pay Mark's co-defendants Competitive Enterprise Institute and Rand Simberg $477,350.80 in attorney's fees - within thirty days. This is related to counts that were dismissed on Anti-SLAPP grounds half-way through the case - one was against CEI for republishing a National Review editorial critical of Mann deemed protected speech and the other against CEI and Rand for "intentional infliction of emotional distress". According to anti-slapp.org: SLAPPs are Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. These damaging suits chill free speech and healthy debate by targeting...

UPDATE: Yesterday afternoon (4/3) Judge Irving of the DC Superior Court denied Michael E. Mann's request to stay enforcement of the half million-dollar judgement he has been order to pay National Review: Here, Dr. Mann does not give any specifics as to his assets, net worth, or liquidity in support of his request.... Nor did the trial record establish the extent of Dr. Mann's assets, net worth, or liquidity at present: The only substantiated figures were drawn from Dr. Mann's W-2s from 2012 to 2017, showing an annual income of at most $198,877.40.... Dr. Mann's perfunctory and unsubstantiated assertions plainly...

What a difference a year makes. A year ago, Michael Mann was riding high after winning his 12-year-old lawsuit against journalist and pundit Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg over comments sharply critical of Mann’s famed “hockey stick” graph. That graph purported to demonstrate a sharp rise in global temperature following industrialization, supposedly caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The offending comments were by Steyn in a National Review blog post and by Simberg in a Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) blog post. Mann brought suit against all four, but in 2021 National Review and CEI won “summary judgment” (a peculiar term...

The satirist Ambrose Bierce had it right: The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff. I might suggest a rather inelegant rephrasing of an old proverb: Live by Falsifying Evidence, Die by Falsifying Evidence And, that's how it started.... "Setting aside questions of credibility" when it comes to Michael E Mann's iconic hockey stick... Mann opened this case in the District of Columbia Superior Court on October 22nd, 2012 – with a lie – a big whopper: It is one thing to engage in discussion about debatable topics. It is quite another to attempt...

BREAKING: A Washington DC court has just ruled on Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg's motion for sanctions against Michael Mann and his attorneys for misleading the jury at trial. Decision: Mann and his attorneys are SANCTIONED for bad faith misconduct and will be assessed costs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Giving a new meaning to the phrase mad scientists, angry researchers, doctors, their patients and supporters ventured out of labs, hospitals and offices Friday to fight against what they call a blitz on life-saving science by the Trump administration. In the nation’s capital, a couple thousand gathered at the Stand Up for Science rally. Organizers said similar rallies were planned in more than 30 U.S. cities. Politicians, scientists, musicians, doctors and their patients made the case that firings, budget and grant cuts in health, climate, science and other research government agencies in the Trump administration’s first 47...

In a stunning but not unexpected ruling today, Judge Irving of the DC Superior Court has reduced the unconstitutional punitive damages jury award against Mark from one million dollars to a mere $5,000. Our brilliant legal counsel Christopher Bartolomucci reacted to the news, "We argued for Mark that the $1 million in punitive damages awarded by the D.C. jury was grossly excessive and unconstitutional. We are pleased that the Superior Court agreed, held that the award violated the Due Process Clause, and reduced it to $5,000." Perhaps, Michael E. Mann's attempted bribe of a Supreme Court Justice was a tad...

After a protracted legal battle, that lasted over eight years, a court in Washington D.C. has ordered University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann to pay National Review over half a million dollars in attorney fees and costs. The ruling marks a significant victory for National Review, which was sued by Mann for defamation and infliction of emotional distress over two blog posts published in 2012 that criticized his work and involvement in a political dispute. Mann's lawsuit, which the court ultimately deemed meritless, dragged on for years, forcing National Review to expend considerable resources in its defense. During the...

Well, finally, after thirteen long years Michael E. Mann has been made to put some personal skin in the game. Followers of last year's trial in the District of Columbia will recall that Mann testified that he had not contributed anything to his legal action against Mark and his co-defendants National Review and CEI. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Where did the funding come from to pay his several lawyers for twelve plus years of his lawfare? He was not required to reveal it under examination. And, we can only speculate... snip Between last night and today, the current DC Superior Court...

Following last month's verdict, Mann vs Simberg and Steyn moves on into its thirteenth year and the appellate phase ...oh, no, sorry, we've still got some post-verdict maneuvring to attend to. On Friday, my counsel filed three motions at the District of Columbia Superior Court. If, as with baseball cards, you're anxious to collect the set, they are: a) a Motion to Stay Execution ...wait, wuh? Nobody said anything about execution. Relax, it's merely a Motion to Stay Execution of the Judgment; b) a Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law; and c) a Motion for (gulp) a New...

The National Review is suing Penn State climate celebrity scientist Michael Mann for $1 million. “We cannot recover the time and effort that Mann has wasted, but we can recover more than a million of the dollars that we have lost defending our unalienable right to free speech,” the Review’s editors wrote Wednesday. Mann won a defamation suit against two conservative writers who had criticized his “hockey stick” graph, which other climate scientists have questioned. Mann and his colleagues say the research demonstrates a sharp rise in unprecedented temperatures in the past few decades. In 2012, Rand Simberg posted an...

As many of you know, late on Thursday a Washington, DC jury found that a) plaintiff Michael E Mann had suffered no actual damages from Steyn's National Review post; but b) ordered defendant Steyn to pay him one million dollars anyway. Late on Friday, the otherwise lethargic District of Columbia Superior Court entered the jury's verdict in final judgment. What happens now? Well, in the next few weeks, there will be certain "renewed" motions from defendants that one is obliged to do, although they are highly unlikely to find favor with Judge Irving. After that, the case will be appealed...

In the old days, American newspapers dispatched court reporters to cover trials for what they were: legal proceedings. Today, they don't send any reporters to court, but get their "climate correspondent" or "environment reporter" to file a story about "attacks on scientists" - even though, in this case, the "scientist" is the plaintiff. Into this wasteland of groupthink hackery came everyone's favourite Irish double-act, Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer, with an innovative and energetic format: Sit in court all day soaking up the atmosphere and the corridor conspiracies, and get a cast of professional actors to re-enact all the best...

Conservative pundit and radio host Mark Steyn has been ordered by a jury to pay a former Penn State professor and "climate scientist" $1 million in damages in a defamation lawsuit about blog posts, published in 2012, criticizing the professor's work. via AP:The jury in Superior Court of the District of Columbia found that [think tank fellow Rand] Simberg and Steyn made false statements, awarding Mann $1 in compensatory damages from each writer. It awarded punitive damages of $1,000 from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn, after finding that the pair made their statements with “maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance...

As many of you already know, a Washington, DC jury today found the Defendants (Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg) liable for defamatory speech and reckless disregard of provable facts. Putting aside the monetary damages, the real damage done by this case is to every American who still believes in the First Amendment. The precedent set today, and as alluded to by Justice Alito when the case was petitioned before the U.S. Supreme Court, means that disagreement and/or criticism of a matter of public policy — the founding principle of this country — is now in doubt. And should you choose...

[Tweets excerpted]: The judge is going over the verdict form question by question Simberg - defamatory? Lead Juror: Yes Provably false: Yes Simberg's statement false: Yes Simberg knew it was false: Yes Mann suffered injury: Yes Simberg Verdict Compensatory Damages: $1 Punitive Damages: $1000.00 Steyn's verdict Defamatory statements: Yes Provably False: Yes False Statements: Yes Published With Knowledge Of Falsity: Yes Entertaining serious doubts: Yes Reckless Disregard Mann Suffered Injury: Yes Compensatory Damages: $1 Punitive Damages: $1,000,000.00

On Wednesday, late in the day at 4pm Deep State Standard Time, Mann vs Simberg and Steyn finally went to the jury, and they retired to deliberate. So now we await their verdict - as, on this same day just a few blocks away, President Trump awaits the decision of a supposedly "conservative" Supreme Court on whether he can be permitted to appear on the ballot. I am exhausted by what passes for "justice" in America, and I expect he feels the same. In my case, the last phase of the trial - closing arguments - began yesterday after lunch:...

Michael Mann is not a victim. That was the theme of Mark's closing today in court. The judge began the day by reading the jury instructions and the afternoon was devoted to closing arguments. First up was the Plaintiff's counsel. Then Victoria Weatherford on behalf of Rand Simberg. And then Mark. The Plaintiff then got 15 minutes to rebut the Defenses' closing before the jury began its deliberations. By this point, any one of Mark's readers could write the Plaintiff's closing. Mann was severely wronged... his life was terrible... That Mark and Rand are guilty of actual malice and knowingly...

Today, after twelve years of procedural bollocks and four weeks of trail, Mann vs Simberg and Steyn will supposedly be going to the jury. We shall see. Mark has not been well this week, but he hopes to be sufficiently healthy to deliver his closing argument. Our friends Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer will be there of course, as they have been every day - unlike slipshod outlets such as NPR, for whom court reports do not involve actually sending a reporter to court, or The Washington Post, who dispatched their "climate reporter" to cover a trial. The poor lad...

Let's recap where the case stands as we enter the final days of the (Climate) Trial of the Century. Michael Mann sued Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn in 2012 for defamation after the "statements at issue" were published. The case then languished in the DC court system for 12 years. It has cost the Defendants millions in legal fees — not to mention the immeasurable physical toll to Mark and Rand. Now, in court, the onus is on the Plaintiff to prove the Defendants acted with malice and that there was harm incurred due to the blog posts. So, has...