Too short and too dishonest for the ride

People often ask me to work with, or publish, or link to, or otherwise support various individuals who are more or less on the ideological Right. And, of course, that has been something that we’ve tried repeatedly to do since we founded Castalia House. The problem, as we have learned over time, is that most people are simply too stupid, too short-sighted, too narcissistic, too independent, or too dishonest to be worth assisting.

The Z-man is not entirely devoid of ideas, and I have occasionally linked to his more insightful posts, but the following comment should suffice to demonstrate why he’s simply not someone that anyone can take seriously as an intellectual or even a commentator. Keep in mind that this is a comment on a post dedicated to declaring that he is the one pure soul worthy of support in a dissident swamp of grifters.

thezman
There was never a lawsuit against Indiegogo. Court filings are public records. For starters, in such a dispute the attorney will look at the contract you signed. He will see there is a dispute resolution process and ask you if you initiated that process. If not, then you will need to do that first. Once that is done and you are not satisfied, he will tell you that the next step is arbitration. Getting a judge to set aside an arbitration clause in a contract is extremely difficult and mostly pointless.

The bottom line is Indiegogo canceled the project, gave the people their money back and that was it. There was no lawsuit. No class action. No arbitration. Nothing.

The combination of ignorance, stupidity, envy, and gamma posturing would be difficult to top without resorting to the visual medium of YouTube. It doesn’t even rise to the level of a clueless mainstream political reporter. Nevertheless, don’t correct him. Don’t set the record straight. Don’t provide him with any proof of what actually happened at all – and I know that literally hundreds of you have it in your possession. Just let his statement stand for the record.

And keep it in mind the next time you ask me why I regard right-wing mediocrities like the Z-man with undisguised contempt and refuse to have anything to do with his kind. Many, if not most, of the so-called “grifters” he decries are not only smarter and harder-working than he is, they are more accomplished and far more worthy of your trust.

Meanwhile, it’s good to see that others on the Right are discovering lawfare can be an effective way to strike back at the weaponized media:

Peter Brimelow, an anti-immigration activist who hosts a website that has published the writings of white supremacists, is suing The New York Times for $5 million for labeling him an “open white nationalist” in an article last year.

The characterization of Brimelow that triggered the libel lawsuit appeared in a Jan. 15, 2019 article by Times political reporter Trip Gabriel that offered a chronology of racist and inflammatory comments by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa)….

“We stand by the story and will vigorously defend,” Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said.

One of these days, we’re going to have to put together a class action against Wikipedia and other media sites used to seed the never-ending slander and libel. This is a good time to go after the media because they no longer have the resources to defend themselves as both their circulations and their revenues are declining.

UPDATE: This response by a Z-maniac is more than a little amusing, considering our complete lack of interest in what any of them happen to think about me or anything else:

This is how a cult leader reassures the faithful: Denigrate the faithless to instill self-righteous superiority within the cult so that they dismiss any counterclaims without thought. Real evidence is no longer necessary. A measured response is to link to evidence or acknowledge that a sealed arbitration leaves room for skepticism.

Notice how the gammas always love to theorize and posture in the complete absence of information. They project their own lack of knowledge as well as their inability to not blurt out everything they know to everyone else. The idea that someone who genuinely possesses the conclusive evidence might not care what they believe is simply beyond their imagination. Sometimes the cult’s superiority is real. And as cults go, it’s quite affordable.

I just thought this was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate to everyone who is in the know that an occasional anklebiter is both a fool and a liar. There is no need to prove it to those who are dumb enough to take him seriously; they will simply move the goalposts anyhow. If they mattered, we’d prove it to them. But they don’t.

Google demonetizes Nick Fuentes

It’s not right, of course, but I can’t say I’m going to shed copious tears over Nick Fuentes being demonetized by Google:

Nicholas Fuentes, who gained headlines earlier this year, has been banned from streaming on YouTube, demonetized, and likely will be banned outright soon.

Now I suppose we’ll find out if he’s genuinely a fighter or if he’s just another ex-YouTuber playing victim. Either way, it’s a great time to go after YouTube, as the parent organization’s top-flight legal chief is currently exiting Alphabet:

The changing of the guard at Alphabet  continues. Roughly one month after Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced they’d be stepping down as the CEO and president of the search giant’s parent company, one of their top lieutenants, Alphabet’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, told employees that he is also leaving the company.

I understand he is retiring in order to spend more time making new families.

The former employee with whom he shares a child, Jennifer Blakely, published a post on Medium last summer in which she described Drummond as a serial philanderer who left his wife for her, then left her and the son that he fathered with her for another now-former Google employee.

Blakely also claimed Drummond had had “an affair with his ‘personal assistant’ who he moved into one of his new homes.”

One day later, Drummond issued a statement of his own, acknowledging his relationship with Blakely and their “difficult break-up 10 years ago.” He went on to state that, “Other than Jennifer, I never started a relationship with anyone else who was working at Google or Alphabet. Any suggestion otherwise is simply untrue.”

Days after issuing the statement, Drummond married a Google employee he’d been dating.

Subscribe to Unauthorized, because no one knows how much longer the Darkstream will be on YouTube.

Epstein didn’t delete the video

But someone did:

The surveillance video taken from outside Jeffrey Epstein’s jail cell on the day of his first apparent suicide attempt has been permanently deleted, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Epstein, the disgraced financier who was facing federal sex-trafficking charges, was found semiconscious in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, or MCC, in New York around 1:27 a.m. on July 23.

But that video is now gone because MCC officials mistakenly saved video from a different floor of the federal detention facility, prosecutors said in a court filing. The MCC “inadvertently preserved video from the wrong tier within the MCC and as a result, video from outside the defendant’s cell on July 22-23, 2019 no longer exists,” the court papers say.

It’s time to outlaw the surveillance state. The cameras quite obviously don’t work well enough to permit it to function at all.

Patreon trolls for new creators

The Quartering, previously banned by Patreon, receives an invitation to join Patreon and disrespectfully declines.

Hi Jeremy,

My name’s Tom and I work on the Creator Partnerships team at Patreon. We help creators build long-term creative businesses by investing in a direct relationship with their fans.

I’m reaching out to you to see if you’re interested in discussing what Patreon membership could look like for you. We’ve previously partnered with creators like Tolarian Community College, Strictly Better Mtg and Dungeon Dudes to help them launch on Patreon. We’d love to see if something similar could be a fit, especially given the recent COPPA ruling which has unexpectedly impacted channels despite their content not being for kids.

Are you free this week?

Best,
Tom

Unlike the December 20th TOS change, which was a direct reaction to the Legal Legion’s actions, I very much doubt this had anything to do with Patreon changing its policies or its attitude towards creators it had previously banned. We already know that Patreon’s processes are shockingly amateurish and disorganized, and that people in one team have no idea what the people in another team are doing.

So, it’s much more likely that Tom and the others in Creator Partnerships is working from a list of creators with a good-sized audience that has never been compared with the list of creators that Sydney and the others in Trust & Safety have banned.

One of the interesting things Jeremy observes is that Patreon processes about $1 billion per year. Since they take about 4 percent after the processing fees, that means their annual revenue is only around $40 million. Which, of course, means that they are even more fragile than we had originally calculated.

Mailvox: the anklebiter’s perspective

ihateowenbenjamin writes:

Haha nothing has happened and never will. You bald idiot loser. You really think you are smart yet won’t go and have a legitimate test. You are a fool. Your dad was a fool. All your work is plagiarised, copied off of successful versions.

You are a literal nobody. You act smart to compensate for your zero accomplishments.

You really think that notifying a company about legitimate violations of users is interference? ahahhaha. You are really so dumb. Owen blatantly violated Patreon TOS you idiot. You talk nonstop about TI yet have zero understanding of how it works. Like your dad you try to take the law into your own hands and think you are smarter than you are.

A dumb old loser. We laugh so much so thank you. other than a few weird losers who watch your show, nobody cares. Nobody believes you. You are not a serious person.

Prove you are in Mensa. Prove a single aarticle of evidence of any of your fake lawsuits.

Patreon/Google etc just laugh at you. You really think they care hahaha. You are an “anklebiter” to them. They don’t care lol. They think you are a nerd loser. You work with Owen Benjamin who is a well known lolcow who does exactly the things you cry about daily. He is a serial defamer and liar.

We all laugh. You are such a bad liar. Total idiot. Good job teaming up with Owen Benjamin and losing any of the credibility you had( you had none anyways).

We’re dealing with some real rocket scientists here. They’re going to be dealing with some serious cases of cognitive dissonance once things start to go public. Of course, there is no point proving anything to a gamma, because the moment that you do, he will define the very conclusive proof he demanded as irrelevant and continue sniping as if he never placed any value on it in the first place.

The doctrine of unconscionability

Just a little light reading that has occupied a few members of the Legion of late:

“The doctrine of unconscionability ‘ “ ‘refers to “ ‘an absence of meaningful choice on the part of one of the parties together with contract terms which are unreasonably favorable to the other party.’ ” ’ ” ’  [Citations.]  There is both a procedural and substantive aspect of unconscionability; the former focuses on ‘oppression’ or ‘surprise’ due to unequal bargaining power, the latter on ‘overly harsh’ or ‘one-sided’ results.  [Citation.]

‘ “Both procedural and substantive unconscionability must be present for the court to refuse to enforce a contract under the doctrine of unconscionability although ‘ “they need not be present in the same degree.” ’  [Citation.]  Essentially the court applies a sliding scale to the determination:  ‘ “[T]he more substantively oppressive the contract term, the less evidence of procedural unconscionability is required to come to the conclusion that the term is unenforceable, and vice versa.” ’ ” ’  [Citation.]  Absent conflicting evidence, the trial court’s unconscionability determination is a question of law subject to de novo review.  [Citations.]”  (Ramos v. Superior Court (2018) 28 Cal.App.5th 1042, 1063 (Ramos); see also Armendariz v. Foundation Health Psychcare Services, Inc. (2000) 24 Cal.4th 83, 113–114 (Armendariz).)

Everything up to now has just been prelude. The Death Star is now fully operational. If you’re both a Rubble Bouncer and a Replatformer, be ready for the green light.

UPDATE: You will know things are well underway when Patreon revises its TOS again and removes the restrictions it inserted on December 20th before February 6th.

Alt★Hero:Q #2: Not Dead Enough

After federal agent Roland Dane survives the successful assassination of the U.S. Secretary of State in Peru, he makes his way back to the United States in secret with the help of a mysterious organization opposed to the global establishment. But when a famous film star is reported dead just hours after the agent visits his house in the Hollywood Hills, Dane realizes that the reach of the evil that is hunting him extends further than he had ever imagined.

Arkhaven has assembled a first-rate production team to create the Alt★Hero: Q series, which explores the incredible QAnon phenomenon that is sweeping the planet. Set in the superhero world of Alt★Hero, Alt★Hero: Q is an astonishing action tale of everyday heroes taking on corruption and evil on a global scale.

The limited gold logo edition of AH:Q #2 is now available in print for $3.99 from the Arkhaven Direct store (US only) or from Amazon. AH:Q backers will receive their gold logo editions after all six print editions are completed. We expect to release the digital edition of AH:Q #3 later this month.

An act of self-regicide

I knew l’affaire de Markle was going to end badly. But I never suspected it was going to end in such a spectacularly bad manner:

Senior members of the royal family have gathered at Kensington Palace to celebrate the Duchess of Cambridge’s 38th birthday amid an ongoing crisis after Prince Harry and Meghan’s bombshell announcement last night.

Kate was seen arriving back at the palace today along with other royals such as Prince Eugenie, with birthday celebrations set to be dominated by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to step back from family roles.

There are expected to be crisis talks today among the most senior family members, who are said to be ‘downright furious’ after learning about the announcement minutes before it broke on television news channels last night.

Royal sources today claimed Prince Harry had ignored crystal-clear orders from the Queen on the subject, after she instructed him not to make announcement about his future plans at this time.

It is understood that Harry had requested a meeting with the Queen at Sandringham as soon as he arrived back in the UK with Meghan and their son Archie this weekend, following a six-week Christmas break to Canada.

The Queen offered to meet the Duke – which was blocked by courtiers – but she still made an explicit request to her grandson that he first discuss his future plans in detail with his father, the Prince of Wales.

But the couple defied the order, going ahead with the announcement and ‘pressing the nuclear button’ on their royal careers, with William and Charles allegedly receiving a copy of the statement just 10 minutes beforehand.

I would definitely recommend avoiding boarding any flight that happens to be carrying Harry, Megan, Andrew, and Fergie. Just, you know, as a precaution. Especially when the British government can so easily play the Lockerbie card and blame the Iranians seeking revenge for General Soleimani.

Royal sources today claimed Prince Harry had ignored crystal-clear orders from the Queen on the subject

One almost wonders if he blames the Queen for his mother’s fate. I find it hard to believe that anyone can be that ensorcelled by a third-rate actress.

Paul Krugman’s Eichenwaldian moment

It must have been the Qanons who are surfing for illegal images on Paul Krugman’s computer. What other explanation could there possibly be?

Well, I’m on the phone with my computer security service, and as I understand it someone compromised my IP address and is using it to download child pornography. I might just be a random target. But this could be an attempt to Qanon me.

It’s an ugly world out there.

Ugly indeed. I had no idea that “Krugman” might be spelled with a silent “stein” on the end. Quick, look, Nobel Prize!

I wonder what he expects the Twitter Police to do about it?  Anyhow, one must admit that Paul Krugman’s intriguing combination of an OK Boomer grasp of technology with an Eichenwaldian defense is at least as credible as his economic theories.

From SocialGalactic:

“What do you call the emotion that is 50{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} wanting to laugh and 50{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} wishing to impose the death penalty?”

Ausführenfreude.

Wallis Markle

While I’m not into British Royal porn, and I certainly expected Megan Markle to be an epic disaster, I never anticipated that she would actually manage to get Prince Harry exiled to Canada this quickly.

Harry and Meghan have quit as senior royals and revealed they will live between the UK and North America while working to become financially independent.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex made their announcement in a statement on their official Instagram account this evening.

They wrote: ‘After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution. We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen. It is with your encouragement, particularly over the last few years, that we feel prepared to make this adjustment. We now plan to balance our time between the United Kingdom and North America, continuing to honour our duty to The Queen, the Commonwealth, and our patronages.’

So much for the whole “isn’t it great he married an African” narrative.