[DailySceptic] It would not have been surprising at all that a visitor to Mark Steyn’s home in New Hampshire, USA, on the evening of March 4th would have heard the popping of bottles of champagne being opened and the clinking of glasses amidst cheerful toasts. On that Tuesday, Justice Judge Alfred S. Irving Jr. of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia issued a long (over 14,000 words) Final Judgment Order, reducing the punitive damages charged against Steyn from an astronomical $1 million to a modest $5,000 in a 13-years long defamation suit launched by the plaintiff Michael Mann in October 2012.
If that visitor would have gone to Mr Steyn’s home on March 12th he would probably have heard more popping of corks and clinking of glasses celebrating a further decision by the same judge. In an eviscerating judgment, the court ruled that Dr Mann and his counsel acted in “bad faith” on multiple occasions in presenting false claims related to the plaintiff’s grant funding. Judge Irving said:
Here, the Court finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that Dr Mann, through [his lawyers] Mr Fontaine and Mr Williams, acted in bad faith when they presented erroneous evidence and made false representations to the jury and the Court regarding damages stemming from loss of grant funding. … The Court does not reach this decision lightly.
The judge didn’t mince his words about Mann and his two lead lawyers:
They each knowingly made a false statement of fact to the Court and Dr Mann knowingly participated in the falsehood, endeavouring to make the strongest case possible even if it required using erroneous and misleading information.
The judge went on:
Dr Mann’s assertion that there was no falsehood or misrepresentation in his testimony or his counsel’s conduct borders on frivolity… the record plainly shows the deliberate and knowing misconduct of Dr Mann’s counsel in eliciting false testimony from Dr Mann and misrepresenting his grant funding… Dr Mann’s counsel’s bad faith misconduct is an affront to the Court’s authority and an attack on the integrity of the proceedings warranting sanctions.
The court was convinced that “the record plainly shows deliberate and knowing misconduct of Dr Mann’s counsel in eliciting false testimony” which was presented to the court and jury. The court decreed that each defendant (Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn) can now sue for expenses incurred in responding to Dr Mann’s “misconduct”.
The misconduct of Dr Mann and his counsel
(1) was extraordinary in its scope, extent and intent;
(2) subjected a jury not only to false evidence and grievous misrepresentations about a crucial part of Dr Mann’s case, but also to additional trial proceedings for correcting the record and the jury’s impressions thereof that otherwise likely would have been unnecessary;
(3) further complicated a trial already rife with convoluted and difficult legal and factual issues; and
(4) burdened Defendants and the Court with the time-and resource-intensive task of ascertaining the true extent of the misconduct and determining appropriate remedial measures for the same, all without any meaningful acknowledgement of the nature of the misconduct by Dr Mann or his attorneys.
JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED: THE PROCESS IS THE PUNISHMENT
I wrote in these pages on Sunday (March 10th) about the legal ‘hockey stick’ saga which took place over 12 years with multiple suits, counter-suits and interlocutory actions and costing millions in legal fees. The judgment delivered yesterday is probably not the end of the matter, and it is not clear what the quantum of fees will be that each of the defendants can claim from Mann’s misconduct in the trial. But recovery of legal costs by the two defendants cannot compensate for the time consumed, the toll it took on their mental and physical health and the sheer anxiety that such legal ordeals can cause their victims.
For interested readers, a short timeline of the main events of the ‘climate trial of the century‘ will be informative:
July 2012: Rand Simberg of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) published a blog post criticising Mann’s ‘hockey stick’ chart, controversially comparing him to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky by stating that Mann had “molested and tortured data”. Shortly after, Mark Steyn referenced Simberg’s post on the National Review’s blog, labelling Mann’s work as “fraudulent”.October 22nd 2012: Michael Mann filed a defamation lawsuit in the District of Columbia Superior Court against Mark Steyn, the National Review, Rand Simberg and the CEI, alleging that their statements were defamatory.
December 22nd 2016: The DC Court of Appeals ruled that Mann’s case against Simberg and Steyn could proceed, stating that a “reasonable jury” could find against the defendants.
May 2019: National Review‘s Special Motion to Dismiss prevailed in large part, with the court dismissing Mann’s libel claim based on Editor Rich Lowry’s ‘Get Lost’ post and the broader intentional infliction of emotional distress claim against National Review. However, the defamation claim based on Mark Steyn’s blog post was not dismissed, allowing that part of the case to continue.
March 19th 2021: The DC Superior Court granted summary judgment in favour of the National Review, stating that actual malice could not be imputed to the company based on the state of mind of an independent contractor like Steyn.
January 16th 2024: The rescheduled trial commenced. After deliberations, the jury found that both Simberg and Steyn had defamed Mann. The jury awarded Mann $1 in compensatory damages from each writer, $1,000 in punitive damages from Simberg and $1 million in punitive damages from Steyn.
March 11th 2024: National Review filed a motion in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia to recover a portion of the legal fees incurred during the litigation, seeking over $1 million from Mann.
January 7th 2025: The court issued a decision awarding National Review $530,820.21 in attorneys’ fees and costs.
March 4th 2025: The Superior Court of the District of Columbia reduced the punitive damages against Mark Steyn from $1 million to $5,000, deeming the original award “grossly excessive and unconstitutional”.
March 12th 2025: The court sanctioned Michael Mann’s legal team for misconduct during the trial, ordering it to pay a portion of the defendants’ legal fees. The court cited improper conduct during discovery and trial proceedings as the basis for these sanctions.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Maria Orlova and Anastasia Krasota
[REGNUM] Inna Demyanenko, deputy editor-in-chief of the Sudzhanskie Vesti newspaper, was missing for seven months. She had been missing since August 5, 2024, the day Sudzha in the Kursk region was captured in an attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Now that the city has been finally liberated by Russian troops, it turns out that our colleague, about whom we wrote, is alive and well: on March 13, the acting governor of the Kursk region, Alexander Khinshtein, met with her and other residents evacuated from Sudzha.
Inna is currently in a temporary accommodation center in Kursk. Here is what Khinshtein said about meeting her on his Telegram channel: “Inna said that she did not want to leave, she did not believe that everything was so serious. And when she realized that it was dangerous, it was already too late — the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not let her go. She really wanted to read, but there was no light, candles, or lanterns. Now she is learning to enjoy simple things — food, water, and freedom.”
IA Regnum was able to talk to her and find out how she survived in the occupied city. After all, until yesterday, all that was known was that Inna Viktorovna worked the entire working day on August 5 and left her editorial office, located in the very center, on Sovetskaya Square, in the evening.
The city was captured by the Ukrainian Armed Forces at night. The last time she was online was on the morning of August 6, 2024.
"My family and I fled under shelling, grabbed our documents and left for Kursk. Inna Viktorovna last contacted us on August 5, now her phone is unavailable, and we don't know where she is or what happened to her," the journalist's colleague Elena said in August 2024.
After contact with Demyanenko was lost, Olga Boldyreva, chairwoman of the Kursk Region Union of Journalists, said the organization was actively searching for and compiling lists of journalists from border areas to assist in the investigation. She stressed the importance of joining efforts to ensure the safety of journalists.
It is now known that Inna simply had no way to report herself: there was no electricity or internet in Sudzha. Accordingly, her newspaper's website was blocked, as was her ability to access social networks. It was even impossible to take the now-familiar photos on a phone: there are no photos or videos of those terrible months.
The woman, like other residents who remained in the city, had to live through the end of summer, autumn and winter in extreme conditions.
"It's a very long conversation about how I lived, how I saved myself, " she says. " We were surrounded. We lit a fire to cook food." At first, we got food from unattended chain stores. And then mutual assistance between people saved us, and everything was fine with food.
"I recognized neighbors I hadn't seen before. We stuck together. We survived," Demyanenko shares sparingly. As for the Ukrainians, she says that her relations with them were smooth, they were all simple soldiers, simple people, and they behaved politely. She is a religious person, and this supported her greatly during the difficult times of occupation. She prayed that the Lord would arrange everything.
The thought that she needed to continue living saved her. But it was very hard: despondency overtook her, the woman worried that everyone had forgotten about them, that no one needed the Sudzhans. And when the Russian military finally came in, Inna experienced a sea of emotions:
"We went out into the street, our soldiers are coming. We were really looking forward to this day of liberation, we were really looking forward to it, because almost eight months have passed. May God give health to the soldiers who liberated us, and to the people who prayed for us."
When it became clear that there was fighting for Sudzha, Inna decided to dye her hair. She says that shells were flying, everything was exploding and shaking, and she heated up some water and started to dye her hair. Although she was shaking, trembling and scared. But the Lord really arranged everything.
Most of all, Inna missed fresh bread and books. In Kursk, she was surrounded with care and attention, and she is gradually recovering from what she had experienced. She says that she simply did not expect such care. Only there did she learn that her colleagues were looking for her through all possible channels. And if at least some news had arrived earlier, it would have helped a lot.
Demyanenko is still unable to distract herself from fresh memories, she says, put me in a movie theater and put on a comedy - and I'll leave. I don't want to see comedies. She gradually learns to smile again and begins to look in the mirror: "I didn't look in any mirror there, I just didn't want to. We were so unkempt."
There is a corner in the temporary accommodation centre with books that residents of Kursk bring there, and the woman immediately took a stack of books for herself, since she needs to train her brain.
"It was hard to think because there was no TV, no information, no communication with intelligent people with whom you communicated before. I need to restore my memory - I can't remember anything. I need to recover again and think about how I will get back the ability to read my favorite authors. That's why I want to read Dontsova, too, just to somehow make a "hole" for other books," she says.
Inna told us that she was happy to go home right now - her beloved cat Basik and another cat that had strayed during the occupation were still there.
"I had already unearthed and trimmed my favorite roses. Our daffodils had already all come out of the ground. I was getting ready to evacuate quickly. I grabbed a bag containing my autumn-winter wardrobe and arrived with it," the journalist says.
But while there is no electricity or gas, it is impossible to live at home. We must wait until at least something is restored in the city. And then, perhaps, we will be able to return to work.
"Sudzhanskie Vesti" is a classic regional newspaper that recently celebrated its centenary. The newspaper was among the leading ones in the region; the authors of articles in Soviet times were tractor drivers, milkmaids, cultural workers, village council workers, builders...
In the 1940s, the newspaper published materials on the restoration of the national economy after the fascist occupation. Apparently, now Inna Demyanenko and her colleagues will have to recall the experience of their predecessors from those years.
Moreover, she is a veteran of the regional press, a member of the Union of Journalists of Russia. Having graduated from the journalism department of the Voronezh State University, she worked in the media for more than 30 years. And she has been working in the editorial office of the Sudzhan newspaper since 1996.
She has enough professionalism and objectivity; the Union of Journalists of Russia notes the high qualifications and active life position of the heroic deputy editor-in-chief.
Meanwhile, this week, 154 people evacuated from the territories of the Sudzhansky District of the Kursk Region liberated from the occupiers will be removed from the wanted list by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs as missing. Although not everyone was so lucky... These people contact their relatives and tell about their fate. According to the assistant to the head of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, Yuri Mezinov, the rescued people are in different emotional states. Some of them could not cope mentally, and psychotherapists will work with them.
But, of course, their return is a joyful event in any case. "Families will now find their loved ones. Can you imagine, not knowing or seeing anything for more than six months? And now imagine what a holiday it is," Mezinov noted in a conversation with the media.
On behalf of the entire journalistic community, we say: we are happy for Inna Demyanenko, for her return to normal life from that terrible "gray zone" where no one knew whether she was alive. Now the main task is to improve her health.
[KhaamaPress] Pakistain’s economy faces persistent structural challenges that have hindered investment and economic growth for decades. The investment-to-GDP ratio has declined to 13.1% in FY24, marking its lowest level in 64 years, while neighboring economies such as India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam maintain ratios above 30%.
Good to know.
This disparity highlights deep-rooted systemic issues that discourage productive capital inflows while fostering speculative and rent-seeking activities. Despite repeated efforts to attract foreign investment, fundamental barriers remain entrenched, limiting Pakistain’s economic potential.
The country’s approach to investment promotion often contrasts starkly with the realities on the ground. While officials present investment portfolios and reform pledges abroad, structural inefficiencies persist, reinforced by bureaucratic hurdles, regulatory unpredictability, and a taxation framework that is widely seen as a deterrent rather than an enabler of business growth. Investors frequently cite concerns over complex tax policies, legal uncertainties, and shifting economic regulations, making long-term planning difficult.
The recent hesitancy of Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... —historically one of Pakistain’s closest economic partners—to proceed with planned investments in May 2024 underscores these challenges.
Hmmmm…
This decision reflects broader concerns about the investment climate, regulatory transparency, and policy consistency in Pakistain, even for allies with strategic interests in the country.
A critical factor contributing to this environment is the state’s excessive reliance on revenues generated from taxation and borrowing, rather than fostering private sector-led growth. More than 60% of federal resources are allocated to debt servicing, leaving limited fiscal space for infrastructure development, industrial support, or investment incentives. Rather than implementing structural economic reforms to stimulate private sector growth, the regulatory landscape remains a maze where well-connected businesses benefit from exemptions while others struggle under restrictive policies.
Pakistain’s exchange rate volatility and erratic fiscal policies further complicate investment planning. Business forecasting has become increasingly unpredictable, discouraging industrial expansion and reducing foreign direct investment (FDI). Despite initiatives like the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), Pakistain attracted just $1.9 billion in FDI during the 2023-2024 fiscal year, a figure significantly lower than its annual external financing needs of approximately $25 billion. This mismatch between investment inflows and financial obligations continues to strain economic stability.
Additionally, Pakistain’s Competitive Industrial Performance Index ranking declined from 78th in 1990 to 80th in 2022, reflecting ongoing deindustrialization. Over the past four decades, the industrial sector’s share of GDP has shrunk at an average rate of 0.6% per year, highlighting the persistent shift of capital away from manufacturing toward unproductive sectors like real estate. This trend is not incidental but a consequence of policy choices that incentivize asset price inflation over industrial productivity.
The government’s reliance on International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailouts—now totaling 25 programs—exemplifies the cyclical nature of Pakistain’s financial distress.
As bad as rolling over on a credit card. Why on earth does the IMF do this to the countries that need external discipline instead? They’re making things worse instead of helping.
The latest $7 billion agreement, while providing short-term relief, does not address fundamental inefficiencies in governance, taxation, or energy sector management. While Pakistain has committed to tax increases equal to 3% of GDP, there has been little progress in tackling wasteful government spending, inefficient subsidies, and politically entrenched economic distortions.
Even when foreign investments materialize, they often come with conditions that introduce long-term economic distortions. The Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... Electric Supply Company serves as a case study, where subsidies granted to attract private investment have resulted in ongoing financial burdens on public resources. Such policies, while initially designed to stimulate investment, frequently create imbalances that hinder sustainable economic growth.
The reluctance of successive governments to implement investment-friendly reforms stems from deep-seated political and economic structures. Expanding the tax base would require challenging influential groups that have historically avoided taxation, while liberalizing trade would threaten domestic industries that rely on protectionist policies. Reducing government expenditures could dismantle key political patronage networks, creating risks for policymakers reluctant to confront entrenched interests.
As a result, Pakistain continues to pursue short-term solutions such as borrowing, securing bilateral assistance, and making superficial policy adjustments, rather than enacting structural reforms. The fiscal deficit remains high, private sector credit is constrained, and economic productivity has stagnated. Despite nominal GDP growth, the 2.4% economic expansion recorded last year remains below the 2.6% population growth rate, indicating a rise in poverty levels rather than meaningful economic progress. Inflation further erodes purchasing power, while job creation remains insufficient to absorb new labor market entrants.
Even when policymakers acknowledge the need for reforms—such as prioritizing manufacturing over real estate, reducing corporate tax burdens, or easing trade restrictions—implementation remains inconsistent. Pakistain’s estimated external financing needs of $146 billion from FY2024 to FY2029 underscore the urgent need for economic restructuring. However,
the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... its largest creditor, China, which holds $23.6 billion in bilateral loans, has shown limited willingness to engage in comprehensive debt restructuring, further complicating the country’s financial outlook.
Domestic debt, comprising nearly 60% of Pakistain’s total public debt, presents an even greater challenge. Addressing this issue requires political consensus and fiscal discipline, both of which have been elusive in Pakistain’s governance landscape. The core of Pakistain’s investment dilemma is not simply economic mismanagement, but an institutional structure that prioritizes rent-seeking over productivity.
It’s higher status to come from the ruling class than to work for a living…
Until Pakistain fosters a business environment where success is driven by efficiency rather than political connections, where regulatory frameworks support rather than hinder markets, and where capital is allocated based on economic merit rather than speculative incentives, investment will remain elusive.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/15/2025 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[DailySceptic] It would not have been surprising at all that a visitor to 
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
