Free Republic

I believe Mark Steyn’s new column is a triumph, and wrote him on Friday to say that. The ensuing critical take on it by my colleague, Jason Steorts, left me shaking my head. My diminished intelligence, compared to NR’s Big Brains, should lead me to remain quiet, but I won’t.One brother — or sister, or let’s say a sibling — of the gay issue, from the perspective of the Left, is environmentalism. Or, specifically, “global warming,” now in its 2.0 version as “climate change.” Its advocates pronounce their positions with utmost scientific certainty, and just as eagerly label their foes...

Today I'm launching a fund and I wonder whether anyone would like to contribute. Please, I implore you all, PLEASE chip in to help finance Professor Michael Mann's suit for defamation against sinister, right-wing Canadian climate-change denier Mark Steyn and the fascist-denialist organ for which Steyn writes, National Review Online! I don't think Mann is going to win his case, not for one fraction of a millisecond. That's why I think it's so important that we give him all the financial encouragement we can at this sensitive early stage. There's a danger that Mann may yet take advice from his...

This column originally appeared in the January 27th print edition of National Review: America is a land of acronyms, and, useful as they are, acronyms can quickly curdle into jargon. SLAPP stands for "strategic lawsuit against public participation" — i.e., using legal action to cow an opponent into silence, and withdrawal from the public square. It was coined in the Eighties by Penelope Canan and George W. Pring at the University of Denver, and in the Nineties they turned it into a book: SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out. And it proved so influential that by the Oughts various jurisdictions...

National Review Online (NRO) is currently running an ad/article explaining that Professor Michael Mann, the creator of the highly questionable "hockey stick" graph that global warming alarmists latched onto to pummel the entire world with dour warnings about the effects of man-made CO2 emissions on life as we know it, is suing NRO and Mark Steyn for defamation of character: ******** "Let me recap: A lawsuit has been formally filed by Professor Michael Mann against National Review and Mark Steyn. You know Mann: The Penn State academic and self-proclaimed (and bogus) Nobel Peace Prize awardee best known, famously and infamously,...

Enlarge Image Public figure? Michael Mann must prove he isn't a private figure, among other challenges, if he is to win in a new libel case. Credit: Wikimedia/Pennsylvania State University Climate scientist Michael Mann is hoping for yet another court victory in his battle with climate skeptics. Earlier this week, the Pennsylvania State University researcher filed a libel lawsuit in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia against two conservative commentators and their respective publications over their attacks on his research. Legal experts say he stands a shot at getting at least part of his libel case heard...

On Tuesday morning, January 21st, I filed a motion with respect to Dr Michael Mann's defamation suit against me, National Review, Rand Simberg, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. I did so because I felt the procedural fiasco the case has been reduced to since last July 10th thanks to the incompetence of the previous judge, Natalia Combs Greene, required what I called "an act of jurisprudential hygiene" from the new judge, Frederick Weisberg. Unfortunately, the DC Superior Court seems disinclined to clean up its act. I appreciate that, to those who followed the fun and frolics of my free speech...

It’s hardly notable when a climate scientist’s findings come under attack from right wing pundits, but it definitely turns heads if they compare that scientist to a child molester. Even more unusual is if that scientist—in this case, Penn State climatologist Michael Mann—retaliates by suing for libel.