Just when you think the District of Columbia court system can't get any worse, they do: Last weekend, the Steyn team landed at Washington Reagan National Airport on Sunday afternoon to discover that the "fourth trial judge" (only in America!) had decided while they were in flight that Monday's trial "must be postponed". And so, in the Common Law world's lousiest jurisdiction, a decade-plus adjudication of a 270-word blog post staggers on toward the start of its thirteenth year in the dank septic tank of DC justice.
For Defendant Steyn, this was devastating - and not inexpensive, once you add up the costs of flights, hotels, etc. And he wasn't the only victim of this capricious and ill-disciplined court. Our friends Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer had also flown in, from California and Ohio, to provide nightly dramatisations of the daily trial transcripts by a cast of A-list actors. So they too were out of pocket thanks to Judge Alfred S Irving's last-minute decision.
Fortunately, our Irish chums are irrepressible. So here they are with a special edition of The Ann & Phelim Scoop. If you can't face sitting through over four hours of Steyn's video deposition by Mann's lawyer, McElhinney & McAleer have selected a few choice excerpts to comment on, along with bringing you up to speed on the Mann vs Steyn case more generally. That all starts just under eleven minutes in (about 10-49), but the first part of the show is also well worth your time, as it focuses on a new exhibition of crime-scene exhibits from the Kermit Gosnell case (Gosnell is America's all-time biggest serial killer, but, because he killed healthy newborn babies, he barely made the papers). Click below to watch:
NEW: Mark Steyn Exposes Climate-Science Fraud
On today's episode, we begin by talking about our latest project: Evidence: A Crime Scene Photo Exhibition, which is happening NOW in Ohio! You can find out more details at https://t.co/eFq26z8vBA.
Then, we take a deep dive into the... pic.twitter.com/m4jHfeztln
— Unreported Story Society (@AP_Unreported) November 1, 2023
As Laura Rosen Cohen wrote on Thursday:
It seems clear not only as Mark has opined that the process is the punishment, but that the idea seems to be actually to murder him using the 'justice system' as the weapon.
If that seems a little over-heated, well, Steyn's cardiologists are inclined to agree. As one of them wrote to the Court, after a particularly disgusting filing by Mann which the judge was minded to indulge, the additional stresses that plaintiff and jurist were eager to impose "have high potential of causing sudden cardiac death - which presumably would be in the opposition's favour".
As longtime Steyn cruisemate John O'Sullivan wrote on Friday:
Mark Steyn is a great man and the best-all-round journalist now living. The court's treatment of his libel case, creating complexities to avoid finding for him and constantly kicking the can down the road, is an outrage.
It is, indeed. Nevertheless, we thank everyone who's signed up for one of our limited-edition trial souvenirs: The SteynOnline Liberty Stick. The trial may be postponed for a few weeks (months? years?), but the Liberty Stick is shipping right now. It features both Magna Carta and the US Constitution - so you can wave that constitution to your heart's content. Every stick is signed and numbered by Mark himself - and is made in the USA.
