There have been exciting developments in the "Russia investigation". There always are, because that is the nature of open-ended money-no-object investigations. But, to me, the most interesting development was the testimony of Michael Caputo, who appeared just before me on Tucker Carlson's show last night. Mr Caputo was, briefly, a very minor Trump campaign aide - and so his life has been destroyed. As he told the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday:
In 2009, my wife and I moved to my hometown of East Aurora, New York to have a family. Making far less money back home, we had a far better quality of life. That is, until the Trump-Russia narrative took off. Today, I can't possibly pay the attendant legal costs and live near my aging father, raising my kids where I grew up.
Your investigation and others into the allegations of Trump campaign collusion with Russia are costing my family a great deal of money – more than $125,000 – and making a visceral impact on my children.
That's chump change for most senators and their vast entourages - and barely a rounding error in most of the budgets they approve. It's also considerably less than, say, my own legal bills after the scofflaws at CRTV broke my contract and put me through a year of "binding arbitration" that Cary Katz and his sleazy business partners ("Governor" Pete Wilson of California, etc) are now refusing to be bound by (having lost the case). But, for most Americans, 125 grand in legal bills for a case you're not even a party to is a big chunk of change.
And somewhere or other is a guy for whom blowing, say, 75 grand on lawyers is catastrophic, and they're trying to turn him to sell-out Caputo so they can turn Caputo to sell-out whoever's next up the chain. And they've got all the time in the world to bleed you dry.
Mr Caputo did something very unusual yesterday. He named names - or at least one name, from the Gulf Emir-sized retinue that attends each senator:
How many of you know Daniel Jones, former Senate Intelligence staffer for Senator Dianne Feinstein? Great guy, right? Most of you worked with him. One of you probably just talked to him this morning.
Of course, very few of us in flyover country knew Daniel until recently. Now we know that he quit his job with your Senate committee not long ago to raise $50 million from ten rich Democrats to finance more work on the FusionGPS Russian dossier. The one the FBI used to get a FISA warrant and intimidate President Donald Trump, without anyone admitting — until months after it was deployed — that it was paid for by Hillary Clinton.
In fact, good old Dan has been raising and spending millions to confirm the unconfirmable – and, of course, to keep all his old intel colleagues up-to-speed on what FusionGPS and British and Russian spies have found...
We know from the news that he's been briefing Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of this committee. Which one of you works for Senator Warner? Please give Danny my best.
Great. So a Senate Intelligence Committee staffer is - what's the word? - colluding with Russian spooks to keep the story alive. And he leaks more than those Moscow hookers:
I saw some of his handiwork just last month. Remember this lede paragraph, from McClatchy on April 13?
'The Justice Department special counsel has evidence that Donald Trump's personal lawyer and confidant, Michael Cohen, secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to two sources familiar with the matter.'
That's your pal Dan, isn't it?
It's unclear from the transcript whether any pals of Dan confirmed this. But Mr Caputo certainly has their number:
I mean, you're all in this together. You're the swamp.
What America needs is an investigation of the investigators. I want to know who is paying for the spies' work and coordinating this attack on President Donald Trump? I want to know who Dan Jones is talking to across the investigations – from the FBI, to the Southern District of New York, to the OSC, to the Department of Justice, to Congress.
Forget about all the death threats against my family. I want to know who cost us so much money, who crushed our kids, who forced us out of our home, all because you lost an election.
I want to know because God damn you to Hell.
(If you would like to read Mr Caputo's full statement, well, oddly enough I can only find it in a non-American publication - The Daily Mail.)
To reprise my old line: The process is the punishment. That's particularly true at the federal level, where as a matter of policy they first wipe you out - drain your savings, empty your retirement account, nuke the kids' college fund ...and then dangle a deal in front of you in exchange for you pleading guilty "only" to a process crime, like lying to the lyin' liars who run the FBI. It is an awesome thing to behold - particularly by comparison with, say, military justice, where the US has been holding 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for almost four times as long as the First World War and still can't manage to bring him to trial.
In a sane system, he'd have been convicted and hanged in a fortnight. Instead, his lawyers are now arguing he's been brain damaged by the United States. Who knows? But, given that the US has been nursemaiding him for over fifteen years, it's not unreasonable to argue that, whatever medical ailments afflict him, they developed during Uncle Sam's leisurely custody of him.
Thus American justice in the 21st century: It can ruin a no-name Trump campaign volunteer in nothing flat. But it can't try a guy who murdered three thousand innocents in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, another two hundred in the Bali nightclub bombing, plus Daniel Pearl in Pakistan ...and has confessed to all this and more.
It's all a joke: civilian, military; federal, state; criminal, civil; family, probate. As my old boss Conrad Black likes to point out, the United States has as many lawyers as the rest of the world combined. One entirely inevitable consequence of that malign distortion in the labor market is that far more aspects of life are litigated, and, when they are, the natural tendency of the system is for everything to take far longer than it would anywhere else. So what counts is not plaintiff or defendant, but which party is in the position to inflict the most pain on the other - whether that's a lavishly endowed government or a billionaire scumbag reduced to suing his own company to avoid paying a court judgment. Whatever it takes for as long as it takes.
And yet despite this being the most litigious society on earth huge numbers of Americans remain oblivious to the vast amount of human wreckage piled up: Every day on cable news, I hear some Democrat telling the host that, if these former minor Trump aides have nothing to hide, then they have nothing to fear from investigation-without-end: We need to let the law do its job, and let the process play itself out.
I heard the same thing six years ago, when Michael Mann, the hockey-stick huckster and climate mullah, sued me for defamation: "Well, if Steyn's innocent, he'll get his day in court and the process will play itself out." That was 2012, and my day in court is no nearer than it was, and a First Amendment that protects my right to a 270-word blog post only after a decade of my life and an eight-figure sum isn't, as a practical matter, in terribly good health, is it?
When the process plays itself out as lethargically and ruinously as this, the process itself is the problem - as Michael Caputo has discovered.
I wish him well, and I wish those toying with him as they've toyed with Carter Page and others are indeed damned to Hell.
~Tomorrow, Friday, I'll be in Lakeland, Florida for the annual Reagan Patriots' Day dinner, with special appearance by Mr Snerdley. Then I'll be in New York for the gala fundraiser for CAMERA, an invaluable institution for the truth on what's happening in the Middle East. More details here - and please note the admission price is considered a tax-deductible donation, and you can get $50 off if you enter promo code MARK.
This weekend is also the first anniversary of The Mark Steyn Club. We will have some special celebrations all month long. But the important, critical element of the Club is its members - and I'm very touched by all those who signed up on that first weekend just under a year ago who are so eager to re-subscribe they took the plunge a few days early. It means an awful lot to me to know you value what we do here - transient politics, civilizational collapse, audio fiction, video poetry, live music. I promise we shall be here long after CRTV is gone. For more information on the Steyn Club, see here - and don't forget our limited-time Gift Membership.
Oh, and we have a grand competition: As you may know, Cary Katz and CRTV have decided to re-sue me, this time for a mere $5 million. Their legal complaint includes as part of Exhibit C my January Song of the Week essay on "Oh Happy Day" - which doesn't mention Katz but which he claims nevertheless is derogatory and defamatory of him. So we're running a competition to help Katz's unfortunate lawyer find something actionable in that "Happy Day" column. First prize is a year's subscription to CRTV, and second prize is (all together now) two subscriptions. Email your entries here, and we'll be announcing the winner next week.
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I have a Dream: Tucker Carlson is your John the Baptist. and you are Yeshua, Joshua, the Redeemer, Jesus, if you will.
Whether the analogy is direct or merely relational is, in whole part, up to Yahweh, but if He's as Schmart as He usually is, keep your nose to the grindstone and your ear to the Wind, and a man with reason, wit, and humor just might will out through sheer genius.
Funny to think He would pick noone from an Ivy League school, no?
Press on, old Bean.
Here's something to love about the Mark Steyn Club as we celebrate one year- Mark cannot write in a column, "As I wrote of the Mark Steyn Club" ten years ago...."
My Comment on Facebook;
This is the Only article which will come your way, if Facebook allows it. This was published in Britain by the Daily Mail.___The usual complicit Smearedia of the U.S.A. snivelling up to the Elite Corrupt Crowd trying to stop Someone. ____It Is always Trump-every Day of the week _____ from reading the actual truth about the sleazy stuff the Democrat Party of America is doing in using the Clinton-Obama-Clinton/Soros Crime family Foundation corrupted F.B.I. as the America StatePolice; same as Gestapo wth the Ge off "Stapo" is sufficient. The "Stepo" put the F.B.I. into the play under the Obama Administration using the Tame & Click-heel Attorney - General(s) Eric Holder then Loretta Lynch.
Between their discussions about Grand Children during Airport Liaison(s) and How to Ship guns to the Drug Cartels south of the border these far from exculpatory Department of Justice tame Attorney Generals used the incredible Budget Access to Tax-payers Funding set up a __ Group of F.B.I. Pit Bull Dogs ____to use the Prosecutor Gaming of American Jurisprudence in putting the Organized Crime Bosses in Jail.____Problem is they used and are still using this Gaming of American Jurisprudence to delay __Hide __ obfuscate ___ outright cheat ___ to stop a NON-colluding President Trump from exposing the incredible pile of Dung The Clinton - Obama - Clinton/Soros --Adminstration used to steal through Corruption American Citizen's Assets needed for National Defence.
The NOT-Publishing of this particular small section of destroying ONE American's Family and ability to live with deserved results of being a hard working American is another Ripple Across the Cess Pool of Sleaze & Smearing the Democrat Party of America has become.
Mark writes, "The process is the punishment. That's particularly true at the federal level, where as a matter of policy they first wipe you out - drain your savings, empty your retirement account, nuke the kids' college fund ...and then dangle a deal in front of you in exchange for you pleading guilty "only" to a process crime, like lying to the lyin' liars who run the FBI. It is an awesome thing to behold - particularly by comparison with, say, military justice, where the US has been holding 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for almost four times as long as the First World War and still can't manage to bring him to trial." But that's a choice Americans have made (Canadians make similar ones, and far worse.)
Put simply, Caputo doesn't matter, any more than Mary Jo Kopechne mattered. No one will overturn systems to defend such little guys and gals. People prefer to forget them and go on with their nice, private lives, gambling that it won't happen to anyone they know. "After all, that guy stuck his head out for what he thought was the good of the country. This fate sure shows HIM! We only know nice people who wouldn't do that."
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, by contrast, has a lot of people in the Islamic world who care about him and you can surely see the difference.
In terms of decline, this is the stage at which the United States slowly tips over into a (for now*) rich Third World country, where people who are wronged or harmed only matter to members of their own family or identity group. All others are considered ripe for exploitation.
For a look at the future in the past, read Edward Banfield's postwar classic: The Moral Basis of a Backward Society. https://amzn.to/2xXSdJE
* The wealth of North America has not derived only from natural resources, which many parts of the world have. It derived mainly from being inhabited by people who, until recently, would not tolerate what the Deep State is doing to Americans today. People can no longer work and not expect their earnings to be seized through extortion and corruption.
There are not many elections left to turn the ship around. A new progressive government will lose no time making up for lost ground in the possibly brief hiatus since 2016. It will cement the Deep State in place, as a permanent majority of people choose to live off entitlements and grievance, while the system that produces wealth declines. And they will always, always find someone else to blame.
MarK
Pretty much on target but I take exception to the use of all the money to pay the high price lawyers to answer questions. That was Michaels choice, own it. He could have just sat down with investigators and gave answers and if he felt uncomfortable, I don't remember or no comment. They would not arrest him and Congress sure wouldn't do anything. I "interviewed" many folks in my day, to the top as you would say, and no $5,000/hour lawyer in sight. They were investigating, not interrogating or torturing. And,ps, why didn't the campaign belly up to the bar if it was so dangerous or important.
Respectfully, I disagree. The NSA, CIA, & FBI in particular and really any modern police force in any large city or state are not trustworthy. They are the terror tools of the state and enemies of the citizenry every bit as much any secret police in any totalitarian regime throughout history. There are example after example in the FBI files of the innocent General Flynns who "just sat down with reasonable men to 'clear their names'" and lived to regret it. Avoidance is the only hope and avoidance in the 21th century generally involves lawyers,
Mark, get your judgment liens in place ASAP. It's going to cost you, but you will prime this lame attempt to set up a competing judgment against what will remain of CRTV.
I'm starting to think it's time to stop the motor of the world and start shrugging... except that would be exactly what the swamp wants. The behavior of Mueller et al is beyond disgusting, it is treasonous. It's time to start saying that and arresting people and subjecting them to the same indignities they impose on others. Sessions needs to step up, or step aside, or be fired.
Sessions apparently disagrees, and nobody seems willing to require a change. Actually we're better off with inept cops. When they get too efficient, bad things start to happen. Count your blessings.
Me too. My fondest wish is that President Trump and Congressmen Nunez start the "Nunez Commission" (the New Church Committee) in late August or early September and destroy the CIA, NSA and the FBI for the next 20 years or so. Isn't that what the Dems did in the 70's with the Church Committee, after all? I wonder why the Dems are so interested now? I guess the current FBI and the various lettered spook companies are their secret police now.
I still believe that most conservatives have no real grasp as to the magnitude of this attack on the president and the republican party. This is an outright coup engineered by Clapper, Brennan, the upper echelon of the FBI, the Press and of course the 'new' democratic party. They can and will destroy anyone in their way. The so called justice dept. is in on it too, filled with careerists like Rosenstein pathologically filled with hatred for Donald Trump. They have rolled over Sessions whom has turned out to be Trumps greatest mistake and which may very well cost him the presidency. I keep hearing those on the right claiming that Meuller has nothing on Trump. He already has something on him and it won't matter how real the evidence is or whether it's even criminal in nature. The press will gin it up to mass hysteria just as they have been doing since Trump won the nomination. Our president is in deep trouble now and by extension so is America.
He's not in trouble, just surrounded by ankle biters. The president's rising poll numbers protect him. The problem for the spooks is their success depended on remaining covert. Now everything is out in the open, they've lost their bite. He dealt with worse in the real estate business. America certainly needs to reconsider who we want to allow to rule us. In eight years the same tactics will be used on Trump's socialist successor, and we'll decide to put a leash on the deep state. Til then, it's just part of the game.
I understand that "the swamp" can inflict this "punishment is the process routine". They'll never outspend their budget. You mentioned in your article an "eight-figure sum" legal bill in fighting Michael Mann's suit. He was a college professor. Where is he getting his money to drag you through the swamp? Penn State doesn't pay that well. Directly or indirectly, someone with deep pockets is funding his legal team.
Stephan: Funny how that works, innit? College Prof receives 8-figure benefit, Andy McCabe crowd sources $$$, some guy named Dan leaves the low-pay (?!) public sector for the private sector and $50m. shows up on his stoop- any IRS interest in these? Any at all? Yet Mark Steyn (wisely) chooses to fund raise this way to avoid an IRS that's, um, "woke" to another conservative voice needing IRS muzzle? We're gonna hafta fix this.
I agree, but to fix it I am certain will require guns and bullets to water the tree of liberty. Don't know about you but I am too old and not a very good shot. Unfortunately my young overeducated professional sons and daughter are too busy with life to notice. Not an unpleasant life now, and as Mr Steyn has pointed out before, kind of like the pleasantness of living off of the final harvests of civilization in a declining grand city like Paris or London.. Oh well.
Couldn't Trump reimburse the $125,000 at least?
I still think Sanders should have announced at the first press conference after the roast that she would run for President if Trump didn't.
He (Caputo) has a GoFundMe campaign. It already raised $125,000+ from 2,000+ people.
Here's hoping that we merry band of deplorables can persevere and completely crush the inside-the-beltway Mean Girls clique (not to be confused with the climate mullahs Mean Girls clique, although there is plenty of beltway overlap between those two cliques - exhibit A being Senator Bill Nelson during Senator Cruz's Dec. 2015 hearing on climate).
Casualties like Caputo who find themselves at the point of the sword and who fight back against overwhelming odds to do their part to preserve the Constitution at the cost of their homes, families, and livelihoods are heroes deserving of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That list of heroes deserving of the Presidential Medal of Freedom includes you, Mark.
PS... Perhaps Mean Girls would be a timely entry as the Movie of the Week.
I second that last statement preceding the postscript, David, even though we both know Mark would eschew that type of honor and offer that those serving in some branch of the Armed Forces or first responders more deservedly earn those kinds of distinctions.
Mark, the easiest way to somewhat reform the legal system in the US (not State versus citizens, but civil litigation between normal people and businesses) is to pass "loser pays" statutes, or more specifically, robust "offer of judgment" statutes. It sobers people up. Florida has a decent one. Many of the Clubbers in other countries where this is the norm likely don't realize that if you win in the US, it is the exception if you're able to recover legal fees, such as in the CRTV case.
Your discussion of Katz's ability to easily finance BS makes me wonder -- where is Michael Mann getting the scratch to finance his suit against you? How much does a Penn State professor make?
Mark replies:
As you say, Mike, America is unique in the Common Law tradition in not having the "loser pays" rule - thus incentivizing the use of the legal system as a form of judicial terrorism. It's so quintessentially American it's known as "the American rule". So, when Judge Gordon ordered CRTV to pay us a seven-figure sum in legal fees and costs plus 76 grand for our share of the arbitration costs, CRTV appealed to Judge Bransten in the NY Supreme Court that judges were required to show deference to "the American rule".
Happily, Judge Bransten upheld Judge Gordon's award of fees in nothing flat - which gives you some idea of how egregious Cary Katz and CRTV's behavior was in bringing this suit.
Just remember the one main virtue of the American rule--it strongly encourages settlement and compromise. You're less likely to fight everything to the end if you don't have a dream of recovering all your fees when it's over. That is a fine thing in many civil cases. It isn't a fine thing in cases like the ones Mark's been involved in...this one, where CRTV was so egregiously in the wrong, or Mann v. Steyn, where the whole point of the suit is to intimidate people into shutting up.
I wouldn't change the rule; I would enforce the exceptions.
(SLAPP statutes like D.C.'s create an exception for cases like Mann's, so that a prevailing defendant can recover costs--unfortunately, D.C.'s statute gives the judge discretion whether to award fees, unlike some states', and the appellate judges have dragged the thing out ridiculously.)
I'll have to disagree with you Joseph, in the friendliest manner possible, though. In my experience the American Rule encourages both frivolous suits and other unreasonable behavior, because the max you can be out for bringing one is just your own fees. But I take your point as much as I can. That is also why I mention an offer of judgment. Under that mechanism, if you sue somebody for $1 million over what is really a $5k injury, then the defendant can offer $5k, and if the Plaintiff refuses the rational offer, and ultimately gets less than $5k, they pay the attorneys' fees of the Defendant for dragging him through it. I think this is even better than "Loser Pays" because it allows the parties to establish a figure around which someone is the "Loser" rather than an all or nothing situation. And it encourages settlement, because you make your offer one in the range in which you think you can establish at trial, and the other side might accept it. It is kind of like "baseball arbitration", at least in the sense that it rewards a litigant for being the more reasonable of the two parties and penalizes the more unreasonable party.
lets be clear where the responsibility lies here. Dems continually oppose 'loser pays' fueled by massive contributions from personal injury and criminal defense lawyers and wealthy law firms and they have funneled enough to republicans to insure that it will never become law.
The "American Rule" does not promote justice or settlement. The majority of the lawsuits in the US are between corporate businesses who have the money to litigate and will continue to do so. The most troubling perversion of the US justice system, the fake and fraudulent class actions and other plaintiff lawyer driven barratry, are also not deterred, but encouraged by the American Rule because it makes legal cost extortion against defendants possible.
I would go farther with the ending the American Rule and make any plaintiff or other party who had an interest in the lawsuit (like the true party in interest in many such cases, the plaintiff attorney) jointly and severally liable for a prevailing defendant's full legal costs, including inconvenience and mental anguish.
Mark replies:
I'm inclined to agree with you, Charles. The clearest sense in the CRTV vs Steyn case of where blame lies is in Judge Gordon's decision to award, and Judge Bransten's decision to uphold, seven figures in legal fees and costs to us - including the entire cost of the arbitration. Of course, being bums, CRTV has yet to pay a dime of that.
I recall being called as a Witness in a minor car collision a couple of decades ago. A following car bumped into the rear of my car, little damage to mine, but smaller car had the front fascia and grill pushed back significantly.
The police were called and during the on scene compiling of information the driver a thirty something somewhat flighty Woman tould the Officer when she slowed down her purse fell off the seat and she reached for it and her foot slipped off the brake pedal.
There was no real input required from me, I stopped the car behind hit mine. I mentioned to the Officer whether there would be any further investigation, some paint left on my three year old SUV bumper and I would probably scrape it of or do nothing. Her car older, maybe not worth the damage caused seemed to be the extent.
The Officer replied, soto voce, you may be called as a Witness because the other driver has a long list of drug use violations. I was called into the Courthouse in St.Catharines, Ontario, Canada a couple months later.
I arrived on time, sat on a bench int the hallway for about an hour and then asked to come into the Courtroom. A couple of Lawyer type and their aides were standing in fron of the Seats for interested people. the discussion went on for about fifteen minutes. Some documents were signed quickly and taken to a Courtroom official.
As an afterthought one of the Lawyer types came over and said we won't need you there has been an agreement signed for {penalties?}. Don't for get to apply at the front of the Courthouse for your expenses. These were quite small only about $25.00 for gas and if there wasn't a wait sitting to be called I probably wouldn't have bothered, but losing two or more hours out of my Business Day was irksome.
This was an Ontario Canada situation for a perceived minor crime. I am now wondering what expense(s) are permitted for witnesses in the U.S.A. and/or New York State, certainly not the most understanding State in the Union of Ordinary Citizen's convenience and Rights.
First it was Buchanan. Then Trump and his 63 million trumpets.
These pioneers are now joined by Jordan Peterson - a force of nature in the academic world. God is back. Conservatism is back. Add Eric Weinstein of Evergreen College fame is lecturing on the death and destruction of the toxic left.
Add Joe Rogan, and Dave Rubin - You Tube GIANTS. Another finger in the wind is Yve Smith's Naked Capitalism. The left is imploding.
Then Camille Paglia sits down with Jordan Peterson and admits that "something" in the history of gays caused their condition. [ forgive the paraphrase, but the admission was there ]
And finally - the Kanye and Kardashian contingent... speaks up.
The Swedish, gender confused, Post modernist play book for - Equity, and Egalitarian Totalitarianism. and the destruction of the male dominance hierarchy - is dying on the vine in full sunlight.
Trump needs to come out swinging... taking scalps ... the GOP be damned. He needs to tell the GOP to come out from under their desks and man up or lose Western Civilization.
The message to all of us from the filth on the left is ... Join the Trump revolution at your peril. We will destroy you, bankrupt you and ruin your family and children.
The Process is the punishment .. brought to us by the trusty Blue Bar Association.
Trump needs to tell Mueller - "YOU ARE FIRED" - ditto for Sessions, Rosenstein and others.
Take scalps - and win the hearts and minds of the country Mr. President. IT's time
The Obama machine and the Clinton Crime Family needs to be in prison. Charles Ortel - a specialist in Charitable Foundation law says any States Attorney, or any foreign country can begin the process that will gut that phony charity... and destroy once and for all, the Crime Cartel of Arkansas and NYC.
The GOP will never man up, it will never again be anything but an enthusiastic adjunct of the Democrat party.
There are only two "parties" in America. The elites, and the rest of us ... whatever pretend affiliation we claim.
I completely agree with your assessment, except that in many ways the Left (including those hiding behind the cover of "Conservatism"), has already destroyed much of what holds our families, friends, fellow worshippers, neighbors and countries together. They think they can destroy more than what they have already? The more they try, the more they reveal their devious methods and ineptitude at everything they touch.
At this point in time, in my own life as well as lifespan of our country, considering all of the lies that we have been told over the last century, I'm convinced to my core that the Left has no moral ground to stand upon.
Everything they have touched in our society has been toxic and has aimed to kill us off: by free-flowing drugs, abortion, gender redefinition, and many needless wars. If not meaning solely to kill us off, to demoralize us in every aspect of our lives: by inadequate attention to our borders, thereby threatening our sovereignty, by promulgating a public education system upon our citizens where the qualifier "deplorable" accurately fits year after year, decade after decade. They fail perennially by neglecting the work needed to balance our annual budgets, in order to maintain financial health and security, by ignoring the people's will so frequently that we have come to expect it, by ineffectively protecting us from barbarians, and I think i'm leaving something off. Oh, yes, by fabricating and enabling the greatest hoax in the history of humankind: that we are killing the planet with our reckless use of fossil fuels.
They layer lies upon lies upon lies until getting through one's life is like walking through one of those carnival-style house of mirrors. You look at dozens and dozens of reflections of more curved and fractured reflections of one's image and it's no longer clear what is real and what is true. But truth seekers remember what is true, valid and just. They must always prevail.
Oh for Ms. Ward to be right. I believe that Ms Lavery and especially Mr. Branstetter have the better argument. History has always favored the nobility over the peasant and bourgeoisie. What we have playing out in Washington today is nothing more than the ruthless 21st century version of nobility reasserting its dominance. What other concept than "nobility" can explain how liars, cheats, and thieves like Bill and Hillary and their fellow travellers end up worth sums far beyond the imagination of normal successful people? But the final indicator that they are the nobility over us is the official reaction to Hillary's email server and related obstruction of justice. There is just no arguing that like a king, duke, or earl of old, Hillary is just above the law that governs the little people.
Surely there must be rich people on the Republican side that can help people like Caputo. If democrats can raise $50,000,000 can't the Republicans. If they see that Caputo has an endless supply then they wouldn't be able to threaten them. And if he has done nothing wrong he can claim the money back surely.
Lot of people making a lot of "money for nothing". Oops a Dire Straits song.
You have me looking for songs in every sentence.
The message is clear - "do not join the Trump revolution or we will bankrupt you."
The GOP is the party of business - although the BORG of silicon valley and the Amazon are far more willing to risk their billions to shape the political landscape.
This is kill or be killed time in political theater. Our side better man up or we lose it all. The left is demonic in their lust to tear down Western Civilization and replace it with the Swedish Lesbian model.
Hi Carol, In Sweden it is 123 men to 100 women. They cannot afford lesbians.
But you are my type of woman. Keep it up.
A GoFundMe appeal has been set up to raise $125,000 for Michael Caputo's legal fees. As of this minute it has raised $285,052. ie more than twice the target.
https://www.gofundme.com/michael-caputo-legal-fund
By the look of it (see the comments) these are all small donations by ordinary people fed up with this malevolent circus.
Absolutely brilliant.
Thanks for the info.
When Mark got into dispute with CRTV, I didn't bother to cancel my CRTV subscription. Much as Mark was the reason for me signing up, I didn't know enough about the nature of the dispute/contractual obligations and have seen some good content on CRTV, particularly Gavin McInnes. Now that I have read the detail of the case and Katz's reaction to it, I have cancelled the subscription. As with the reader who demanded Mark to "be the bigger man", I'm unhappy to see a split in the small world of the right wing political commentariat, but tolerating an individual like Katz in the name of big tent politics is simply immoral. I hope that there is a mechanism for extracting exemplary damages through the Nevada proceedings Mark is engaged in, as to simply deny effect to the sham transactions Katz has contrived would not provide a deterrent to others seeking to fraudulently evade the law. Indeed, if it is proved to be fraud, this should surely be a criminal matter for the police to investigate?
Katz is not a Conservative or Liberal. Katz is for self. He will do anything to get the student loans law repealed. Personally I think he is the one in a hundred who do not have empathy and will dump on anyone or anything that gets in his way.
That must of been the money cow of the century where you could make over $1,000,000,000. From students.
We have had plenty of them over here too. The EU being the biggest stitch up.
David, like you I didn't bother to cancel when the dispute went public, seemingly right after we all signed up because of Mark. I like some of the other programming. When Mark released the results of the lawsuit, I emailed CRTV to not try to automatically charge my (old/hacked) credit card. I told them the reason was because of their sleazy attempt to screw Mark. A nice lady named Amy responded and said she hoped that I would change my mind down the road and agreed to close the subscription when it expired. My mind is boggled that Katz would initiate another suit. I haven't seen any mention of Mark from the other hosts on CRTV. Strange.
That begs the question, then why did he decide to bankroll a 'conservative' media? Don't see any history of or any affinity whatsoever for it in any way. And then if it's all about profits, why go through all the trouble and expense to chase after and court the M. Steyn 'brand' (so to speak) only to almost immediately shut it down? By everyone's comments that they signed up expressly for the Steyn show, then an entirely new group of subscriptions were coming in that wouldn't have been there otherwise... which means having M. Mark on the roster was demonstrably a valued-added to the 'network' package.
Suspecting that the silence from everyone else there under contract is from fear. What a trap.
Good explanation about Katz. I wondered why he would be involved in conservative media and hadn't made the connection to student loans. Also, I believe he really didn't make a billion off of students. He made it off of the federal, state, and local governments and their one billion false and fraudulent edubecational [sic] support and encouragement programs.
Seems to me that Katz is another of the one billion arguments to reverse the 19th century idea of Noble "corporations" having separate legal existence and limited legal liability and return to the much older rule that a man is liable to repair any damage he has done.
Maybe to make a few bucks, or at least recover some costs, while advocating repeal of the student loan changes that reduced his profits? Maybe the treatment of Mr. Steyn was a "bait and switch" marketing scheme? Who knows, but given this fellow's history with large profits from "student" loans guaranteed by the government and his CRTV behavior, I just don't believe he is conservative in any way understandable to me.
Mark,
You wrote, "I wish him well, and I wish those toying with him as they've toyed with Carter Page and others are indeed damned to Hell".
I consider you to be a "Master of the Language", your Christian DNA makes you truly believes that Hell exist. "Hell On Earth", The Mastering of your gift gives you the opportunity to make THOSE who beat the Common Man into submission experience a Hell on Earth. I humbly request that you refrain from describing the vermin that do this to us as "toying", the other obscene phrase is "bad actors"/ They are not "toying" and they are not "acting". They are deadly serious.
I'm a Kid of the 60's, served in the Navy from 68-70, the MSM during the Viet-Nam War, hit on the powerful, emotional process of the "Ultimate Sacrifice" screen scroll. They'd give the names of families, friends and neighbors whose souls would be left with a void forever every evening at the end of the "local news".
Mark, you have your Top songs, Best Books, Favorite Favorite Lists etc, please consider a "Hell on Earth List. When the Daniel Jones's of the world, are exposed to th harsh bright light of truth please tell your Clubber's and the world who they are, and why they are being placed on your/our list, you have not "placed your light under a basket", thank you.
On a lighter note, I became a "plank owner" of MSC on May 7, 2017, On May 10th, 1968 I was told "I love you" and it "rocked my world", 50 years later it's still "rocking my world". I'll renew my membership in MSC on MAY 10TH.
Recently, I've been getting robocalls to my phone where a recorded message tells me there are serious allegations against me and I am to call a certain number or I'll be arrested. Now, I know this is a fraud call, but I like to call these numbers and get the guy with the Indian accent on the phone just to hear how amateurish the scam is. I put it on speaker phone so my friends at work can hear it. What they do is tell you that you have an outstanding tax bill with the IRS and they can settle it for you. I've played along to the point where another guy got on the phone and told me that in addition to my tax bill, I had $15K outstanding legal fees. Why do they do this? Because they know that Americans legitimately DO have fears of our government and legal fees and they are hoping to get someone to hand over money because of that deep seated and sometimes legitimate fear. Even scumbag fraudsters in whatever hellhole they are calling from know about this. Eventually, they detect that I'm laughing at them and they hang up. It's all good fun but it's an indictment of our tyrannical taxing system that scammers will exploit our fear of it.
They do it because it works. Scams persist because there are always a few willing to be scammed. Were it not for the growing glut of the miseducated and the naive, they would instead turn to mugging or robbery. But boiler room fraud is easier, and probably more profitable.
For the benefit of those who do not know this, the IRS only sends a letter if you have a tax problem. Never fall for a phone call, especially if the caller has English as a third language.
Maybe, but I kept trying to get the guy to tell me who to pay him,I said "I'll meet you at the bank!" but I couldn't get a commitment. These guys were really poorly organized, not sure how they get paid. They didn't ask for a credit card number, bank routing... I might not be a good enough actor to really pull this off.
I recently ran across a service on the internet that uses an AI to do what you did. You transfer the unwanted sales or scammer call to the service and the AI then can cue off of the caller to string them along. The idea is to waste the callers time and to frustrate them at little or no cost to you. If it works it seems like a great service to me.
We are beyond changing things by talking about it.
As libertarian Claire Wolfe once said: "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
I suspect we have passed that awkward stage.
That's why the bastards are so desperate to disarm us.
Sadly I am inclined to agree. That said, I am old and live comfortably so for now am not inclined to join the fighting. But who knows, the only certainty in life and the universe is that unpredictable changes will occur. Maybe the USA will rediscover some virtues and right itself before the violence is necessary. The pessimist attitude in me does not believe this, however. Neither did Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in 1787,
"What country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms. the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it's natural manure."
Mr. Caputo's lament, heartbreaking as it was, sounded familiar:
JEFFERSON SMITH: I guess this is just another lost cause Mr. [Schiff]. All you people don't know about lost causes. Mr. [Schiff] does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for and he fought for them once. For the only reason any man ever fights for them. Because of just one plain simple rule. Love thy neighbor. And in this world today of great hatred a man who knows that rule has a great trust. You know that rule Mr. [Schiff] and I loved you for it just as my father did. And you know that you fight harder for the lost causes than for any others. Yes you'd even die for them. Like a man we both knew Mr. [Schiff]. You think I'm licked. You all think I'm licked. Well I'm not licked. And I'm gonna stay right here and fight for this lost cause. Even if this room gets filled with lies like these. And the [Schumers] and all their armies come marching into this place. Somebody will listen to me."
Almost 80 years after Mr. Smith went to Washington, the lost cause is the liberty of free men and women.
The judge needs to throw out this frivolous case immediately and make Katz, Levin, Wilson et al... responsible for your legal fees (again) with a few more million for pain & suffering. This travesty of justice is as repulsive.
At some point I would think someone playing this game of scofflaw and deadbeat to the tune of this amount of money could be hauled off to jail, but it now seems keeping the legal system engaged, whether you have a case or not, is now a refuge for stalling off paying the piper or facing the music. I've been thinking that the average folks engaged in mere business of survival and keeping our noses to the grindstone are the enemy of the state. Now I believe it more than ever. Seems we have two choices left: take it or fight it. I continue to support Mr. Trump and pray each day he will make many bold moves to keep taking the fight to the state that wants to kneecap the average good citizen and disembowel the will of the little people.
The legal system was designed and is maintained by lawyers. Shakespeare was right, but perhaps legal reform will eventually reduce the demand for non productive lawyers, and for their untimely demise. Something as simple as loser-pays would probably shut down half the law schools. The ongoing reductions in federal regulations are probably already cutting into their business. Conflict is inevitable, and some hope litigation is less messy than the alternatives. It's becoming more apparent that the legal process can be as damaging as the more traditional methods, so that's not working either. The next stage will be authoritarian socialism, with our rulers making those decisions for us. Much more efficient, but less satisfying.
Well said and your comment reminds me of when Mr. Steyn pointed out in the 2012 Presidential, we go over the cliff at 120 MPH (Obama) or 30 MPH (Romney). The Republicans as a whole were, and still are, liberal Democrats-lite. Their pro-life, pro-family, repeal of Obamacare, etc... were all just fundraising talking points. You are 100% correct and I thank God that Trump was elected. And I wish he could follow through on all of his promises, but the evil deep state bureaucracies have gone into overdrive for their contempt of tax-paying, hard-working, fellow Americans and trying to pull off a coup. Fighting the deep state & its media sycophants requires allies, but President Trump is alone with just a handful of Republican congressmen (and not one Senator) willing to defend his policies. I pray that President Trump can pull of another election-type miracle to defeat the deep state.
"The next stage will be authoritarian socialism, with our rulers making those decisions for us." That is a great point, but I think we are there now with our current crop of "rulers", a.k.a. "Well Connected Lawyers". Obamacare was nothing more than a few insane, left-wing control freaks (primarily lawyers sprinkled with trust fund, Ivy League doctors and economists) finally realizing their lifelong dream of seizing big money healthcare. Another example would be the banning of cigarettes in U.S.A. It was not about concern for the health of Americans, but lawyers (again, the Clintons and Rodhams were heavily involved) seeking billions in easy money from a cash cow (tobacco companies and their farmers). There was no panic and rioting in the streets on either issue, just "...our rulers making those decisions for us."
Twice a day the broken clock is right, they say! Tee hee!
Is it that bad? I thought Tom Cotton and at least a few others were behind Trump. Even so, a few aren't going to cut it. We need some more crazy true conservatives to run for office, but who wants to get dragged through mud to a finish line? That's the problem. Lefties know how to enjoy getting down and dirty.
I think someone may use Mr Caputo's magnificent spray in the script of the movie made of this sorry saga.
Wish could say more and better, but hope this gets more and more coverage and builds unity of the many to bring about good change.
I hope our POTUS billionaire( with the well exercised set of Cahones ) can drain Washington of the corrupt swamp things. I like the scenario of replacing the AG with a fighter and turning the legal monster on the true deplorables. Let the games begin!
I've had my own experience with a federal agency, and indeed the process is the punishment. The Washington DC lawyers we were forced to hire cost us 6 figures and no matter we proved that the inquisition was flawed. We got ground into the dirt, and I suspect more people have had the same experience, because the agency in question likes to send a report to Congress every year about the great job it does...even though it is a total scam. But there is nowhere to appeal.
Which leads me to a couple of observations. The President is being dragged through the swamp by a cast of characters who wouldn't have been believable 20 years ago, and so are small fry like Caputo. Consider that if the swamp gets away with this, the downstream effects that will have on other federal agencies and their attitude towards....us. If the FBI can railroad the peasants and kings alike with impunity and immunity, then expect many, many more Louis Lerners abusing their authority when it comes to Joe Q Citizen who runs afoul...or just seemingly runs afoul....of some obscure federal regulation. They will be emboldened to be even more arrogant, dismissive and vengeful to get you, so as to get them their good performance review on the way up the GS 1-15 pay ladder.
Also...if Diane Feinstein's creation, Dan " Little FrankenFeinstein" Jones raised 50 million bucks to keep investigating Trump, then where is that money going? Into who's pockets? Rush posited that we shouldn't be surprised to see some grainy, black and golden...er, white... tape show up purporting to be from a security camera in Moscow with hookers cavorting on a bed with a Trump lookalike basking in the shower, but come on, you could do that in a seedy Florida hotel for a couple of hundred bucks.
That's a lot of walking around money though, to pay the right deep state reprobates off . Look how Clapper got a CNN gig for his perfidy. Who else is getting a piece of that 50 million dollar action?
So sorry! It's so wrong. More people have to learn these accounts., build the network and knowledge?
Plus, staffers can stay for decades - maybe 'Peace Corps' them and limit to 8 years and OUT, plus ban on lobbying for a decade after. How can people use these experiences to bring change?
As for the pee-pee dossier.... it's the most absurd story ever. Anyone with eyeballs has seen Trump hotels. They are all top-of-the-line immaculate. Immaculate. He and all his family NEVER step out without being put together. He's a neat-nik.
"Consider that if the swamp gets away with this, the downstream effects that will have on other federal agencies and their attitude towards....us. If the FBI can railroad the peasants and kings alike with impunity and immunity, then expect many, many more Louis Lerners abusing their authority when it comes to Joe Q Citizen who runs afoul...or just seemingly runs afoul....of some obscure federal regulation. They will be emboldened to be even more arrogant, dismissive and vengeful to get you, so as to get them their good performance review on the way up the GS 1-15 pay ladder."
This is exactly why I've just donated $100 to Mr Caputo's GoFundMe campaign (I'm a little guy too). Bloody good luck to him too. The entire business is sick sick sick to the core.
I'm very much minded of Martin Niemöller.
Unfortunately, people don't have to learn, and most never do. The persistence of ignorance and apathy and tribal justice allows process punishment to persist. Maybe people will get smarter. Eventually. But not any time soon.
Maybe some do learn,slowly and only sometimes and in some places. Cliven Bundy remembered Ruby Ridge and when he and his group made their last stand they had more guns than the feds and went on the offensive rather than just holing up in a remote Idaho cabin for the FBI sharpshooters to kill their wives and children.
Of course the end of both stories are similar. The Ruby Ridge FBI murderers got promotions and awards and some of the Bundy clan got killed during the Feds counter attack.
There are many better ways to complain about the government than picking a gun fight with agencies that buy ammo by the truckload.
Mark, I have said this before. Go to that miserable court in DC and point out the Constitution of the United States requires a speedy trial. 7 years of depositions and no discovery is unconstitutional.
A huge number of things we all just take for granted are unconstitutional. The Constitution ceased being a governing document when the first federal entitlement check was cut and mailed. That was a long time ago.
The Constitution is now about as relevant to US governance as the Code of Hammurabi. It should be moved to the Smithsonian and put next to the Aztec calendar based on their similar relevance to American governance.
You are so right. Ten or fifteen years ago my family visited the US Archives building in Washington where the founding documents of the country are kept in super secure helium filled uv ray protected bullet proof glass, well you get the picture, cases. Admittedly my eyesight is weak and the light was down low, but the handwritten copy of the constitution on display appeared to me to be blank pages with some illegible scratches on it. I told my children that that very copy on display was the reference copy often used by the Supreme Court when a close constitutional question arose in a case. The entire court would come to the archive to examine the original. This was all very convenient, as the archive was close to the courthouse and the document being blank, was no impediment at all to the imposition of the judgement of a "wise latina" or of international law over the wisdom gained through blood and sacrifice formerly contained in the US Constitution.
Shakespeare had a remedy for what to do with lawyers...
President Trump will be able to pardon people so the punishment has to be in the process or it would be pointless. Perhaps that's the strategy the accused should take; don't cave, take the worst charge they throw at you, don't hire a lawyer, and when the gavel falls the President just issues a pardon. Everyone knows it's a sham anyway and only the people interested in keeping it going will object and they're the same crowd that thinks they're still married to the sitting President. Mrs Basketball Barry seems to have misunderstood the expression of being 'married to the job'.
Unfortunately we've gone from a civil society to a snivel society pretty much everywhere you look.
http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/calgary-aims-to-remove-roadblocks-and-barriers-for-women-and-minorities
Fortunately we are starting to get weeks like the previous one, where President Trump was hitting them far and clearing the bases. I think a Korean summit would go a long way towards midterm results.
Someone should be ready to compare and contrast, with a snapshot, the Korean summit with the Obama beer summit that signaled the important armistice between Henry Gates and the Massachusetts cop, attended also by that master negotiator Joe Biden.
I see that Burpee has a hybrid tomato called "Oh Happy Day." Maybe Katz could sue them too?
This enrages me and I'm sorry it's been done to you, Mr Caputo, Mike Flynn... It is so wrong.
Just as bad as America's "justice" system, if not worse, is the media's indifference.
Complicity. Who did Comey go to to get the special counsel ball rolling? Via his Columbia co-conspirator, the news media. They're the drivers.
I wouldn't call it indifference. I'd say that they relish it. They're on the same team.
Indeed. However, they seem to forget that we won't.
You forget - OUR SIDE - is the party of Noonan, Will, Krauthammer, and Jonah Goldberg... those are the loudest voices.
I hate those people. With every fiber of my being. The Bush family belongs in a gulag. And the elevator after last week's funeral was not going UP. The world is a better place this week. I will say the same thing in the coming weeks when we get the good news from Arizona. These are the DEMONS who empower the evil on the collectivists, the post modernists, and the fascist left.
They are sending an expensive message to any who join the Trump revolution - using the legal profession they dominate.... "Do not enter politics. We will crush you."
How many Trump wannabees are questioning whether they can afford to join the revolution???
Wisdom is rare these days. Thanks.
Could not have said it better. Where do we go from here?