Replace: ‘Conservative Inc Folds’ – JP, ‘in exchange for dropping the half million Michael Mann was ordered to pay them, Mann will drop his appeal of the verdicts in their favor. In other words: Mann wins, NR loses’
https://www.steynonline.com/15675/conservative-inc-folds
by Melissa Howes
Michael Mann vs Free Speech
Excerpt:
On Friday at Steyn HQ, we received an inquiry from a reporter seeking a comment on “the agreement between Mann and NRO.” Unfortunately, having had no communication from our “co-defendants” JP (NR), we had to scramble around a bit to figure out what the reporter was talking about.
A different publication, The Daily Pennsylvanian, reports:
Penn professor Michael Mann has reached an agreement with the JP that releases him from paying the company’s remaining legal fees from his defamation case in exchange for dropping ongoing litigation against the magazine.
[UPDATE] See also this decent take in The Philadelphia Inquirer:
In 2024, the case went to trial in front of a Washington, D.C., jury, and Mann won a $1 million verdict against the bloggers. But following the verdict, D.C. Superior Court Judge Alfred S. Irving reduced the verdict to $5,000, sanctioned the scientist for misrepresentations in court, and ordered him to pay his opponents’ legal fees to the tune of $1 million…
Mann agreed to drop the appeal and not pursue other legal action related to the posts against the JP, and in exchange the publication agreed to withdraw its request for legal fees, according to a copy of the settlement.
It turns out, in classic JP fashion, they had a winning hand but, they have managed to turn it into a loser…
You got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em…..‘Cause every hand’s a winner
And every hand’s a loser
In exchange for dropping the half million Mann was ordered to pay them, Mann will drop his appeal of the verdicts in their favor. In other words: Mann wins, NR loses.
Funny. We see what you did there! More on that in a bit…
[This, from the same magazine that just published a hit piece on Phyllis Schlafly:
The last time I saw Mrs Schlafly was at a David Horowitz event at the Breakers in Palm Beach. Mark had just given a barn-burner of a speech and she had made her way through the crowd escorted by her walker to congratulate Mark. She was very petite, and I immediately felt protective asking those crowding around to make room for her. At the mention of her name, all around made way and stood in rapt fascination as she and Mark conversed. A great lady. But I digress…]
As longtime readers know. Mark was once JP‘s “Happy Warrior”. He headlined events for NR on land and sea. Indeed, so committed was Mark that he made his way to speak at a fundraiser for NR in Boston just one day after a car accident with a head injury and an excruciating case of tinnitus.
At the time, Mark’s syndicated column appeared at NR once a week. He also wrote feature articles for the magazine and contributed often to “The Corner” – which was NR’s blog. It was the place to post small items that did not rise to article level and sometimes a bit of back and forth between contributors.
It was a few days after the Louis Freeh report into the cover-up by Penn State officials including its president Graham Spanier* of former football coach Jerry Sandusky’s crimes against children. It was a subject Mark wrote about several months earlier: “Penn State’s institutional wickedness“.
As with Mark’s coverage of the Pakistani Muslim Rape Gang Crisis in the UK, Mark has always been interested in how these things are allowed to happen and how they are covered up.
Mark has also always been interested in the iconic “hockey stick” touted by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) as justification for their efforts before he even knew anything about its creator Michael E. Mann. Mark referred to the stick as “fraudulent” in publications all around the world. A fact that came even more in focus after a whistle-blower released email exchanges between Mann and other “climate scientists” that sought to “hide the decline” in his “statistical model” which purported to show a rise in global temperatures.
In the case of Mark’s blog post at The Corner at JP, it was others that made the connection with the institutional wickedness at Penn before Mark did, including our friend Ann McElhinney who covered the trial with her husband Phelim McAleer.
And, Peter Wood at The Chronicle of Higher Education in a piece titled “A Culture of Evasion“.
And, of course, our co-defendant Rand Simberg for the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
It was Rand’s column that Mark quoted from in “Football and Hockey” a blog post at The Corner – whilst making clear:
Not sure I’d have extended that metaphor all the way into the locker-room showers with quite the zeal Mr Simberg does but he has a point.
Mark added:
…when the East Anglia emails came out, Penn State felt obliged to “investigate” Professor Mann. Graham Spanier, the Penn State president forced to resign over Sandusky, was the same cove who investigated Mann. And, as with Sandusky and Paterno, the college declined to find one of its star names guilty of any wrongdoing.
Mann’s lawyer demanded an apology from JP to which Rich Lowry told him to “Get Lost” – which is why Lowry is now proclaiming that Mann has finally “gone away”. Congrats?!
But, Mann hasn’t gone away. Not by a long shot. Mark and Rand and CEI are still in the case.
You see Mann added Lowry’s piece “Get Lost” to his complaint. And, though this article was eventually tossed out of the case, it was this piece – that Mark did not write and had nothing to do with – that Mann’s lawyer displayed in his closing argument to the jury.
So not only was Mark convicted for being Rush Limbaugh’s guest host, many believe he was also convicted for being the closest thing to JP in JP’s absence. Readers will recall there were no damages (despite Mann’s fraudulent case for some for which he has been sanctioned). Nonetheless, Mark was originally slapped with one million dollars in punitive damages by a liberal DC jury – subsequently reduced to a mere 5k.