Free Republic

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...

[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

Prayers for Mark Steyn Today as he Again Faces the Leftist DC Courts and the Mann Lawsuit. He is being sued for challenging a leftist' lies about environment temperature increases. He has severe cardiac issues. Snd just had another heart attack and a sixth Stent placed. The horrorshow courts require his presence instead of video. Evil courts are killers

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said that Hunter Biden “wanted everyone to see” the pornographic photos of him she displayed during a House hearing — hours after the first son’s lawyer filed an ethics complaint against her for publicly flashing the X-rated images. Hunter wanted the world to see his lurid acts because the president’s son himself “uploaded them to several foreign amateur porn sites and Porn Hub,” Greene tweeted Saturday. On Friday, attorney Abbe Lowell wrote to the Office of Congressional Ethics, demanding a formal review of Greene after she showed sexually explicit but censored photos of Hunter Biden...

Fans haven’t lost that lovin’ feeling for her. Legendary songwriter Cynthia Weil, the muse behind “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” and countless other hits, passed away Thursday evening at 82. Weil’s daughter Dr. Jenn Mann confirmed the icon’s death in a statement to TMZ. “My mother, Cynthia Weil, was the greatest mother, grandmother and wife our family could ever ask for,” she wrote. “She was my best friend, confidant and my partner in crime and an idol and trailblazer for women in music.” As of yet, the cause of death has yet to be revealed. Born in 1940 in New...

Monday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” climate scientist Michael Mann emphasized the importance of getting President Joe Biden’s so-called “Build Back Better” agenda passed. According to Mann, the bill, which he noted “has climate provisions that will address” the problems of deadly tornadoes such as the ones seen across the central United States over the weekend, would prevent future tornadoes from being worse.

BECKLEY, W.Va. (AP) -- A congressman skeptical of the need for U.S. military action against Iraq says he is flying to Baghdad, hoping to answer questions about a possible invasion and seeking a meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said he wants to reassure Iraqi citizens that Americans are ``not out to wage war for war's sake.'' ``I'm not going as a secretary of state,'' Rahall said Tuesday. ``I'm not going as a weapons inspector. And I'm not calling upon this administration to do one thing or another. I just have a lot of questions.'' Rahall,...

How Tightly Does the Democratic Party Control the Rioters? In my last column I wondered who was in the saddle in riot-torn blue cities. Was it Antifa and Black Lives Matter, or the Democratic Party? Does the Democratic National Committee have the power to call the looters in to start urban chaos and shake business leaders down for donations? To make President Trump look weak, for tolerating this disorder? Or better yet, tempt him to overreact with a blood-soaked crackdown?Even more importantly, can the Democrats call off the wolves when things go too far? For instance, when terrified citizens in...

Forced schooling turned out from the first to be a breeding ground for crime and public outrage, not the “best police” as promised. “As the twenty-first century begins its second decade, mass schooling is much as it was in 1910, at least for the poor and the ordinary. It is test-driven, bell-driven, pedagogue-dominated, and thoroughly dumbed down.” Let me give you an excerpt from a boys’ manual of instructions on how to build things, published in 1937. It was sold on newsstands as The Amateur Craftsman’s Cyclopedia of Things to Make and was expressly intended, as it states in print,...

In this time when everything about K-12 education is up in the air and up for grabs, we should consider that the default educational context in the period before 1880 was one room schools controlled by working parents and local boards, which rewarded diligence and merit in the educational enterprise, was oriented toward biblical and civic literacy, and inculcated high regard for the Christian acceptance of the classics and good, modest literature (the good vs. the great books) among children of families of modest means, children who had time-limitations on their school career because of the need to go to...

Virtual Study Hall is the Best Contemporary Model for True Education. "We're all homeschoolers now." Virtual Study Hall is a contemporary update, for today's conditions, of the highly successful One Room School model of 200 years past, enlarging the scope of Homeschool socialization groups to encompass the primary education enterprise itself, centering on instruction and study. Study Halls supply a vital, missing element of study progress, for students to coordinate between textbooks and instruction. (The continual demand of junior students for the teacher's attention in the open classroom, tends to limit the effectiveness of the teaching and study enterprise to...

The Supreme Court on Friday will consider whether to take up a prominent climatologist's defamation suit against a venerated conservative magazine, in a case that pits climate scientists against the free speech rights of global warming skeptics. The dispute between scientist Michael Mann and the National Review has drawn attention from lawmakers, interest groups, academics and media, as the court weighs adding a potentially blockbuster First Amendment showdown to an already politically charged docket. Scientists hail Mann’s lawsuit as a necessary defense against efforts to erode public confidence in the scientific consensus that climate change is an urgent threat, while...

Link only, USA Today.

Is global-warming vanguardist Michael Mann in contempt of court or isn’t he? Climate realist and Principia Scientific International (PSI) director John O’Sullivan says yes. He writes that Mann missed a judge’s deadline to produce his data in what’s dubbed the “climate science trial of the century” and now faces defeat, financial consequences, and possible criminal investigation in the United States. As for Mann, his attorney denies the allegations, calling them “spurious.” What is this about? Mann had launched a series of punitive lawsuits designed to silence critics, with journalist Mark Steyn, National Review Online, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and 79-year-old...

...He did even worse; he launched a campaign of punitive lawsuits against anyone who criticized him. He has sued Mark Steyn, National Review Online, and climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball. Mann shot himself in the foot with that last. For several years, Mann had refused to produce his data for the court (in support of his own case), claiming that it was “proprietary.” After missing a February 20th deadline, he now finds himself in contempt. Under Canadian law, the court is now required to dismiss the suit. John O'Sullivan goes into detail: "The defendant in the libel trial, the 79-year-old Canadian...

Penn State climate scientist, Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann commits contempt of court in the ‘climate science trial of the century.’ Prominent alarmist shockingly defies judge and refuses to surrender data for open court examination. Only possible outcome: Mann’s humiliation, defeat and likely criminal investigation in the U.S. The defendant in the libel trial, the 79-year-old Canadian climatologist, Dr Tim Ball (above, right) is expected to instruct his British Columbia attorneys to trigger mandatory punitive court sanctions, including a ruling that Mann did act with criminal intent when using public funds to commit climate data fraud. Mann’s imminent defeat is set...

Penn State climate scientist, Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann commits contempt of court in the ‘climate science trial of the century.’ Prominent alarmist shockingly defies judge and refuses to surrender data for open court examination. Only possible outcome: Mann’s humiliation, defeat and likely criminal investigation in the U.S. The defendant in the libel trial, the 79-year-old Canadian climatologist, Dr Tim Ball (above, right) is expected to instruct his British Columbia attorneys to trigger mandatory punitive court sanctions, including a ruling that Mann did act with criminal intent when using public funds to commit climate data fraud. Mann’s imminent defeat is set...

DeKalb County Sheriff Jeffrey Mann was charged with two misdemeanors after an Atlanta police officer said the sheriff exposed himself late Saturday night and then attempted to evade arrest.According to the incident report, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mann was observed in a part of Piedmont Park known for “sexual acts after dark.” Mann had exposed himself and was walking in the direction of a police officer, the report states. Once he got within 10 feet, the report continues, the officer turned his flashlight on Mann, identifying himself as police and commanding him to stop. Mann fled instead, leading...

Apart from being a tetchy, hotheaded, rude, bullying, cackhanded, ignorant, malevolent and embarrassingly useless excuse for a scientist, Professor Michael Mann – the guy behind the serially-discredited Hockey Stick – is also the most outrageous liar. Mann used often to claim that he was a Nobel Prizewinner – till someone unhelpfully pointed out that he was but one of hundreds of scientists who contributed to Assessment Reports by the IPCC (which did win the Nobel Prize in 2007) This week the bald-pated shyster was up to his old tricks again, telling a string of porkie pies at a climate science...

“As a practical proposition … if I enjoy normal life expectancy, this case will consume the bulk of my remaining time on earth. In the event that I don’t, the thuggish Mann will come after my family, as has happened to my late friend Andrew Breitbart’s children.” This is how well-known political commentator Mark Steyn recently summed up his opinion about the libel suit filed against him by Penn State “climate scientist” Michael Mann, which is expected to be set for trial soon. “I did not seek this battle.… But I will not shirk the fight, and I will prevail,”...