Ezra Is Getting Good At Begging For Forgiveness

So Connie Fournier wrote a book about how much she, her husband, and many of the denizens of Free Dominion feel betrayed by Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party. While we haven't bothered to read it, a friend did let us know we were mentioned in it, though not by name because we have cooties:

The biggest offenders in this attempted character assassination were anonymous bloggers with ties to violent anti-racist groups. Their obsession with writing about us and posting personal information about Free Dominion members spooked us to the point where we moved our household to a different location and kept our new address a secret.

The book is getting rave reviews though. But in the rather incestuous world of the fringe conservative echo chamber, the people giving the five star reviews appear to be mostly members of Free Dominion, fringe conservative bloggers, or both.

Like Jay Currie who seems to have a writing gig with Ezra Levant's "The Rebel."

In Currie's most recent (and evidently only thus far) of four articles (all of which have been removed at some time), it appears that he discusses  Ms. Fournier's book. And he makes some pointed, and potentially defamatory, comments about one Richard Warman.

Or at least we're guessing this is the case, since Levant pulled the article from the website:

Just so our readers can get a clear view of the reason for the article being removed:

Checking Mr. Warman's website confirmed our suspicions:

Rebel News Network/Ezra Levant – I have received an apology and retraction from Rebel News Network for defamatory material on their website. The question is if this constitutes some kind of world record for the shortest time ever for a media outlet (or youtube channel if you prefer) to go from inception to receiving a libel notice resulting in apology and retraction?

A further look at Mr. Warman's website included this little nugget too:

Richard Warman v Connie Fournier and Mark Fournier – December 2nd, 2015 is the date that has been set by the Ontario Court of Appeal for the meritless appeal by the Fourniers in my successful libel action against them. Of interest is the fact that they’re not appealing the $31,000 in damages awarded against them by the jury of their peers they demanded. The Fourniers are only appealing the permanent injunction to stop defaming me and the $62,000+ in costs against them personally.

The Fourniers, wisely, seemed not to have repeated the defamatory statements that are suggested in the extirpated Currie article, which is probably for the best considering they are already in pretty deep on the above successful libel action and a second upcoming concerning the Anne Cools smear. Interestingly Levant and other fringe conservative bloggers have apologized for that too.

Yeah. Don't @#$% with Richard Warman.

Bits and Bites: August 2015 Not Belated Edition

It's sometimes a tough call on whether or not we should discuss certain individuals on the blog. There are those like "the Goudreau" who seem to court any sort of attention, positive (rarely) or negative (much more frequent) as if the attention validates their importance. Usually the significance that individual places upon himself is in inverse proportion to the actual significance the individual actually has.

Such is the case of Ron Banerjee who, as the head (and likely only member) of Canadian Hindu Advocacy, has been able to fool a number of conservative media types into treating him with a degree of deference that would not necessarily be afforded to him if they realized how insignificant he really is.... to say nothing of the really disgusting things he writes and says about Muslims, Sikhs, LGBTQ, women, and a host of other groups an individuals.

Case in point, last week Banerjee and other members of Rise Canada, the newest hate group that Banerjee has created, protested outside the building where Olivia Chow accepted the NDP nomination to run in Spadina—Fort York.

But to refer to "members" of Rise Canada is perhaps a bit generous of us:

Yep. Two. That's all he was able to muster.

Banerjee later posted a video of himself (or at least the dulcet sounds of his slightly slurred voice) and the other dude harassing the folks entering the building. We won't play the entire video, but this part is somewhat interesting:

Conservative Party of Canada Policy Declaration STILL Supports Defining Marriage to Exclude LGBTQ....

.... as of 2013. Their most recent policy declaration:

Now they did have that free vote in 2006 when the Conservatives won a minority government. Afterwards Stephen Harper was quoted as saying, "I don't see reopening this question in the future."

And yet, in 2013, it was and remains a plank in the Conservative Party's policy statement.

Troubling?

More than a bit.

Shout out to Kathleen Smith for catching this first.

"Cobbsville Redux" or "The Sequel is Usually Worse Than the Original": Part II

When we last looked at Craig Cobb's North Dakota efforts, he had set his sights on a new town. Antler, population 20 (give or take) is just a hop, skip, and jump over the Canadian border and a 50 minute drive from this writer's home town. Unable to resist attention, he publicly announced his intentions on Stormfront which was picked up by local, state, and eventually national media.

Since that announcement, Crusty the Cobb appears to have grown smug assuming that no one will be able to thwart his masterful plans this time. He even started taunting the folks in Leith, the town he first tried to take over and where he was ultimately arrested. Cobb seems to now believe that he will be able to have his conviction thrown out, the inhabitants of Leith arrested for persecuting him, and the sheriff's department stuck with a civil lawsuit for an unconstitutional arrest:

 

We had thought that "Antler, ND" might be Cobb, though we're now leaning towards it being Deborah Dutton. No matter. The world is Craig Cobb's oyster.

Except....

Yeah, you knew the wheels were going to fall off soon:

Paulie Denied Entry Into United States

Well, when you are known to associate and promote neo-Nazi and Klan groups, many of which are known for engaging in violence, you can hardly be surprised when it catches up with you after more than 40 years of involvement in the racist right. Right?

Or, if you are Paul Fromm, you explain that you were denied entry into the United States because the Americans are biased against Germans and those who are of German descent:

It is interesting that all this seemed to occur in June but that Paulie only decided to let his followers know about it in the video below in late July.

Hmmm.... wonder how his inability to travel to the United States will affect his income?

We could note the irony in his whining about not being permitted to enter the United States, but we think the irony would be as obvious to our readers as it would be over the heads of Paulie and boneheads.

Here's the deal Paulie. Your name is known now internationally as a director of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a hate group in the news because the Charleston killer was inspired by the rhetoric of the organization.

You think maybe that might be a reason why you were not permitted to enter the country?

Just a thought. 

Ron Banerjee, André Drouin, and Rise Canada

We had mentioned in our previous article that we were working on a new story. In fact, it's a story that sort of fell into our laps, though initially we didn't quite realize how significant it would turn out to be:

Before being sent the above unsolicited link we had been aware of Rise Canada though we didn't pay it a lot of attention as it was yet another Islamaphobic project of Ron Banerjee:

Ron Banerjee holding pamphlet

We've discussed Banerjee on the blog in the past. He styles himself as the director and spokesman of Canadian Hindu Advocacy, a virulently Islamaphobic "group" which is, for all intents and purposes a one man show. Banerjee attended last summer's Ford Fest where he was heard shouting homophobic slurs at protesters, one of whom he appears to have physically assaulted. And he is occasionally found in the company of the Jewish Defence League. 

While he has been able to snooker some into believing CHA is actually a legitimate interest group representing Canadian Hindus before his behavior gives him away as a fraud, most people who know of Banerjee know him as a self-promoter with limited influence. 

So with this in mind we generally ignored Rise Canada since it seemed simply to be just another one of Banerjee's delusions of grandeur. We didn't even bother looking at the website which we assumed would be as devoid of content as that of CHA.

However one of our members did eventually decide to take a look, again assuming there wouldn't be much there. 

That assumption turned out to be incorrect. What we did find took us on a rather interesting ride.

August 2015 Bits and Bites: Horribly Belated Edition

I know, I know.

This writer just got out of the bush a few days ago after several weeks of camping. Unfortunately, I forgot to let our friend who fills in when I'm (a) on vacation, (b) sick, (c) burnt out, or (d) hung over. But as he was gone as well as it turns out, it wouldn't have mattered anyways.

Soooo, what's happened since our last update?

First, we are working on gathering details for an upcoming article. Won't tip our hand too much yet, but I will mention that it involves a person based in Toronto we've discussed with some frequency in the past and some rather interesting associations that individual turns out to have. Stay tuned.

Second, we have two good news stories and one not-so-good story we would like to share, though even the latter doesn't put it's subject in a particularly positive light.

We start with the good news.

At the beginning of July, the New Brunswick Court of Appeals reserved judgement in the case of Robert McCorkill, who's will leaving his estate to the American-based hate group the National Alliance was challenged by his estranged sister, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and the government of New Brunswick. Paulie suggested that, "experienced court observers predicted a six month wait for the decision."

In the end, it didn't even take a single month: