In this episode of Lawfaire, host Alex Blumberg is joined by Ron Coleman and Mark Randazza, two of the most well-known left-wing lawyers in the game. They talk about the recent case against The Slants, the Toronto terror attack, and why we should all go to court.
Transcript
Transcripts from "Get Off My Lawn - Gavin McInnes" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. You can also explore and interact with the transcripts here.
00:02:33.000He was the guy who successfully freed the Slants from their trademark noose, where they were told they couldn't call themselves the Slants because that's racist.
00:03:02.000I usually call the show after the front page of the post, but I'm going to call this one Law Fair because it's a special app dedicated to frivolous cases.
00:04:20.000Him and his brother had a complete arsenal, and they weren't just planning to kill people with guns, of which they had dozens and dozens, but they were planning to kill them with chemical warfare.
00:04:30.000On September 20th, 2017, Durham Regional Police executed a search warrant at Ansari's address, where the shooter's brother had been living, after firefighters noticed a suspicious substance in the basement and alerted police.
00:04:46.000Police say that they discovered 33 guns and 42 kilograms of what was later identified as the very deadly drug, carfentanol.
00:04:57.000Now, this is where the story gets really interesting.
00:05:01.000You see, carfentanol isn't your usual street drug.
00:05:06.000Carfentanol is 100 times stronger than its lethal cousin, fentanyl, making it 5,000 times stronger than heroin.
00:05:15.000Developed way back in the 1970s as a tranquilizer for large animals like elephants and bears, the synthetic opioid has been studied as a potential chemical weapon by countries, including the U.S., China, and Israel.
00:05:30.000Now, according to Alberta's chief medical officer, Dr. Karen Grimsrudd, an amount as small as a grain of sand can kill you.
00:05:44.000These guys were terrorists, and they were going to try to kill hundreds and hundreds of Canadians, Christians, infidels in the name of jihad, which is why ISIS took credit for it.
00:05:57.000And what's really amazing about all of this is that the Prime Minister of Canada's reaction is to go surfing and to go on dates with gays.
00:07:14.000Defamation law is essentially dead in this country.
00:07:18.000There are some Nazi states where there is some remaining vestige of defamation law, but in those being called the Nazi would not be actionable.
00:07:31.000Well, the allegation has got to the point where it means jerk.
00:07:39.000So therefore, it's become non-defamatory.
00:07:43.000it's just a rhetoric and that the courts especially in in new york and in the you know the non predominantly non-nazi uh areas where i practice um uh they they look at the context and they say if you're you know i mean let If it's on Twitter, it ain't defamation.
00:08:04.000Because on Twitter, everyone's either a Nazi or an a-haul who calls people Nazis.
00:08:12.000There's really not a lot of in-between.
00:08:14.000Yeah, but if someone accuses, if someone wants to sue you for a tweet, for example, getting a lawyer to rebuke their allegation, you're looking at about four grand, five grand.
00:08:27.000So if they want you to pay them five grand, it's about the same either way, whether you defend yourself or pay them off.
00:08:38.000That's you're saying to defend a lawsuit, to defend against a lawsuit that was brought against you for a tweet.
00:08:45.000Yes, is inevitably going to cost you three, four, five bills.
00:08:50.000So why not just pay off the jerk who sued you?
00:08:56.000Well, first of all, because guys like me don't make a living that way.
00:09:01.000Actually, no, the plaintiff's lawyers do, because probably most of those guys are working on some kind of contingency.
00:09:28.000I think the more interesting question is which came first, the chicken or the egg.
00:09:32.000Did the law leave us behind because it became, we're in an environment now where words are so meaningless and therefore it became so impossible to attach legal, you know, legal significance to rhetoric?
00:09:53.000Or is it the fact that because the law of defamation became so weak over the last generation, that that's why words have become so weak?
00:12:52.000Well, you know what I've been doing is sending the editor letters from a lawyer, and that means their lawyers have to go through it, through it, And parse out what's manageable.
00:13:03.000Then they go back, they change the article.
00:13:05.000And the big picture that I appreciate about that is: A, I've cost them money legally because their lawyers had to do something.
00:13:12.000B, I've shown the editor that this particular writer is an amateur, and when he writes articles, usually she, when she writes articles, you have to go through her stuff and fix all her mistakes.
00:13:26.000And C, you get the record changed, and they inevitably buckle.
00:13:38.000For you, it makes perfect sense because you're getting that all the time.
00:13:42.000I mean, for me, it's just, you know, I think actually my Nazi era, my Nazi period is probably in the rearview mirror.
00:13:52.0002017 was a very big year for me and the Bund, you know, but since then, you know, since Twitter basically separated the silos, and I tend to not encounter, you know, that kind of people unless I'm trolling, which, you know, everyone likes a little bit of fun.
00:14:11.000I really don't, it's not something that comes up too often.
00:14:13.000You know, I really mostly have to worry about the fact that so many of my family members think I'm a Nazi.
00:14:56.000They have a pretty absolutist position with respect to free speech, unless it involves religion.
00:15:04.000Luckily, religion wasn't implicated in this case, but they came out on our side.
00:15:10.000And that probably made a big difference in terms of the left wing of the court.
00:15:14.000I think we got Justice Ginsburg's vote by virtue of her longtime association with the ACLU, as well as the other left-wing justices.
00:15:24.000And I will tell you that in light of what happened at the end of this term, with Justice Kennedy sort of, you know, kind of coming out as a closet conservative for just the last handful of decisions, I'm not sure we're going to see a unanimous Supreme Court opinion on a free speech issue for a very long time.
00:15:50.000I think we're going back to a world where we always had Thurgood Marshall and Justice Brennan routinely being against whatever the conservative majority was for.
00:16:03.000And I think that's probably where we're going on this court now.
00:16:08.000Kennedy did have the ability, I think, to create consensus.
00:16:12.000And I think our case was really a high watermark.
00:16:14.000But it had no effect whatsoever on anyone's thinking or understanding about hate speech.
00:16:24.000Is this good or bad for the First Amendment, this new development, this lack of consensus?
00:16:31.000Well, you know, the First Amendment doesn't need consensus.
00:16:38.000I mean, as long as our constitutional government continues to exist, the First Amendment is there protecting our free expression.
00:16:46.000So what I think is tremendous is that the Supreme Court has stood by itself, at least on the free speech side.
00:16:55.000I mean, when you look at the religion decisions, it is troubling.
00:17:00.000I think it's going to be better with the new justices that have been appointed by President Trump.
00:17:07.000But in general, the idea that words have so little meaning and they become so devoid.
00:17:14.000I mean, we're talking about an entire cultural crackup here.
00:17:18.000It's not a matter of constitutional laws.
00:17:19.000It's a matter of civil discourses and the very fabric of communication.
00:17:26.000I don't know how it's going to be rebuilt.
00:17:28.000I don't know what it's going to take for us to be able to talk to each other with respect again.
00:17:34.000You know, there was a guy a week ago who said, hey, you know, speaking of Ben Shapiro, some actor who I never heard about and watched TV, who said, if you want to at least hear once conservative who's worth listening to, listen to Ben Shapiro.
00:17:54.000There's no room for discourse anymore.
00:17:57.000I mean, you know, I've had to block people or mute people because they are in my world, but they're intolerable.
00:18:06.000The things that they think it's okay to say to me personally over policy distinctions is, you know, you just, look, the best thing to do is to keep your social media lives separate from your personal life and your work life.
00:18:23.000And don't let anyone know that you're like, you know, Gavin McGinnis.
00:19:23.000I think my theory is that George Soros terrorizes Ezra Levant with frivolous lawsuits and pays someone to pay someone to pay someone to pay someone to bother him.
00:19:34.000I think I get it occasionally, Charles C. Johnson, Cernovich, Pisobic.
00:19:39.000And I want to start playing their game.
00:19:47.000Well, you know, you get what you pay for.
00:19:49.000I can certainly find you a very modestly priced attorney, but I can't tell you the results would be what you want.
00:19:58.000But, you know, as far as third-party funding of lawsuits for kind of side purposes, that's nothing new.
00:20:09.000I mean, that's something that everybody freaked out about when Peter Thiel paid for the Gawker lawsuit.
00:20:16.000And although I looked at it, my knee-jerk reaction is always in favor of the media.
00:20:22.000But I looked at it and I said, well, this is no different than when organizations such as the ACLU or the SPLC or the ADL or the NRA will fund lawsuits that might further their political goals.
00:20:38.000Well, that's someone I'd love to sue is the SPLC.
00:20:41.000They constantly lie about me and my organization.
00:20:44.000They say hate and they'll find, you know, they cherry-pick these things going through 20 years and thousands of hours of content and they cherry-pick these stories, even though you say, I'm not an anti-Semite, I'm not a racist, I'm not, blah, blah, blah.
00:20:57.000And I just want to say, all right, you know what?
00:21:08.000I don't think it hurt that he was in the UK, but where the libel laws are a lot more opened up.
00:21:16.000But I would say that as far as the theory goes, I think the SPLC has a very serious integrity deficiency.
00:21:27.000And yeah, they've really gotten to the point where quote-unquote hate groups or racists or white supremacists are really just anyone they might be politically opposed to.
00:21:42.000Yeah, they don't mind anti-Semitism when it comes from Muslims.
00:21:46.000They don't mind racism when it's anti-white.
00:21:49.000But anyone makes an unfortunate joke and they happen to support Trump, they're looking at having their lives ruined.
00:21:55.000And the frustrating thing is the incurious, the moms of the world, your great aunt, they still think the SPLC is the 1970s SPLC.
00:22:06.000So when they hear Hey Group, they go, well, that must be true.
00:22:12.000Yeah, I remember, you know, most of my friends and relatives are left-wing.
00:22:19.000And I remember when Trump got elected, the entire feed on my Facebook page was people screaming that they were going to now donate money to the SPLC to fight the upcoming wave of racism that we were going to have to deal with.
00:22:35.000And, you know, I tried very hard to convince them, all right, if you want to donate money to fight racism, I can give you 10 great organizations to give money to.
00:22:56.000I would like to be that poverty strategy.
00:22:59.000You look at the building itself, and they have this cement fountain that is bigger than my house, this big sort of orb, this big sphere that's spewing out water in an infinite way.
00:23:10.000I mean, they're not very self-conscious about their wealth.
00:23:12.000It looks like CAA, the casting company, whatever, the agents that represent all the big celebrities.
00:23:19.000You go to CAA in Los Angeles and you feel like you're at Darth Vader's house.
00:23:25.000Like, you can't believe the wealth around you.
00:23:28.000You know, there was a case recently in a bar called The Griffin in LA, and a bunch of proud boys just went there wearing MAGA hats to drink beer.
00:23:36.000A bunch of comedians went there, attacked them, got them kicked out.
00:23:40.000In the footage, by the way, there was this Puerto Rican war vet wearing a MAGA hat.
00:23:45.000He was kicked out, fired from his job for being in that video.
00:23:53.000And by the way, the group of Proud Boys were mostly non-white, and the ones attacking them were 100% white.
00:23:59.000And they went there to, you know, fight racism.
00:24:00.000Anyway, my understanding in California...
00:26:07.000Then the comedians showed up, took their MAGA hats, a kerfuffle ensued, and I believe the bartender told them to leave.
00:26:16.000I mean, at that point, I don't think, yeah, it doesn't sound like a good claim to me, only because I see it as a once there's a once there's a kerfuffle, you know, you can take anti-kerfuffle actions on an expedited basis.
00:26:32.000You know, they probably had to do that in order to avoid liability.
00:26:36.000I'm starting to think, I'm still going to try to sue them, and it'll probably cost me $5 to $10 just to get the ball rolling, but I'm starting to think this law fair is really just for billionaires.
00:26:48.000Well, at least millionaires, because if you look at, look, attorneys are not cheap.
00:26:54.000Even a crappy attorney is going to cost you a couple hundred bucks an hour.
00:26:58.000I bill significantly in excess of that.
00:27:42.000Like, if someone calls you a Nazi or a white nationalist, that just seems, I was talking to Ron Coleman about this, and it just seems way too expensive for way little, way, way too little change.
00:27:54.000And also, they've diluted these allegations with this white nationalist crap where it just means Trump supporter.
00:28:00.000It's almost like you can't sue for it anymore.
00:28:03.000Or even somebody who isn't sufficiently anti-Trump.
00:28:08.000I mean, I don't find myself, I don't know that I'd call myself a Trump supporter.
00:28:16.000If he keeps up what he's doing, I'll probably vote for him for re-election because I'm actually quite thrilled with his Supreme Court picks.
00:28:24.000Pretty happy with some of the other stuff he's done.
00:28:37.000You know, even that is enough to be a white supremacist apologist in this day and age to certain people, including people that I call my friends.
00:28:46.000You know, well, you're just emboldening and normalizing white supremacy.
00:29:24.000Like, can you give me an example of a case you're working on or recently worked on where you thought this is worth someone spending a ton of money on?
00:29:34.000You know, I've had, I don't usually do plaintiff side defamation cases, although I have done a number of them.
00:29:43.000You know, I had one where a pretty well-known public figure was accused of rape.
00:29:50.000And the blogger that wrote about it wrote about, claimed that he had raped a woman who came to her and wanted to break her story.
00:29:59.000This was right, it's actually kind of raped before the whole Me Too thing happened.
00:30:05.000And we found that that was certainly sufficient grounds to sue her.
00:30:10.000We sued the source, not the blogger herself, because as a public figure, if somebody comes to a journalist and says, accuses you of that, since you're a public figure, it's harder for you to win that case.
00:30:25.000So if that journalist has a reliable source, they're going to get away with that.
00:30:29.000Plus, the journalist can just say, alleged, and this person told me without saying it's true, and they get the story without the litigation.
00:30:39.000Right, but then what you do is you sue the source.
00:30:43.000And of course, these journalists will say, well, it's an unnamed source.
00:30:49.000But they don't have a right to do that to defend a defamation claim.
00:30:52.000So if I say, if I went and wrote on my blog some accusation like that against you and then said, well, I'm relying on a source for this and I'm not giving that source up.
00:32:04.000You're suing some lying, crazy chick who's probably, her house is probably a futon on the floor, a big pile of clean laundry, a big pile of dirty laundry.
00:33:06.000Now, if it's somebody, let's say it was you, I think the initial story Gavin McGinnis accused of insert horrible crime here would make page one.
00:33:17.000And then when you win your defamation verdict, you know, I don't know that that'll be as tweeted about, at least by people who hate you.
00:33:25.000It would make page 36, but at least I could scream about this ongoing court case, which it just becomes such a farce these days.
00:33:34.000I wish you could just sue people for lying and make them change it.
00:33:39.000But it feels like the Trump derangement syndrome has just gone absolutely off the rails.
00:33:45.000There was just a guy, there was a black woman stabbed in Oakland by a loser transient nut.
00:33:51.000They decided to say it was Proud Boys that did the stabbing, and they were meeting at a bar to celebrate.
00:33:56.000And then that crazy lie rumor got so intense that they were beating up dudes wearing American flag shirts, assuming they were part of this group that stabbed the girl.
00:34:06.000You know, it does seem strange for me, you know, and I've always been a little bit of a kind of a left-wing firebrand, I mean, for decades.
00:34:16.000But it never occurred to me that it made a lot of sense to act in violence against somebody who's wearing an American flag shirt.
00:34:24.000You know, or even somebody who's, you know, I think the president that I have despised more than any in my lifetime is George W. Bush.
00:34:34.000I still think the guy crashed the car while we let him drive it and is responsible for really putting a huge crack in what America is.
00:34:43.000Yeah, I think he's the one who broke open the borders to a large extent.
00:34:46.000Well, he's also the one who essentially just went into the Middle East like some child with a stick on Sandcastle Day and bashed everything over and then ran away.
00:34:58.000But it never occurred to me ever to key a car that saw a W sticker on it or to even say anything really nasty to somebody wearing a George, I'm with Bush shirt.
00:35:14.000I would look at them and go, really, man?
00:35:16.000I was saying that to my wife the other day.
00:35:18.000She was talking about MAGA hats in restaurants and how I was saying, if I get attacked at a restaurant, here's what's going to go down.
00:37:13.000How about, yeah, maybe the entire republic will not come to a crashing destruction in nuclear winter because we have a guy who said, grab him by the pussy.
00:37:24.000Well, what's happened was, despite economic prosperity, despite black unemployment low, despite curing Kim Jong-un, despite all these successes, the left has taken Hillary's narrative as fact and said, look, it's the Fourth Reich.
00:37:41.000Look, there's people stabbing black girls for no reason.
00:37:49.000No, there's this, you know, there's supposedly this uptick in hate crimes, which I don't think that that claim is borne out by the statistics.
00:37:56.000No, there's probably an uptick in reported hate crimes, but that includes so many hoaxes that there's no data differential.
00:38:13.000I mean, I'm very glad that I'm not black when I'm driving really fast in my car, you know, breaking the speed limit, cutting down a one-way street, because I know if I get pulled over, it's just going to be about money, and I'm not going to get the back of my head blown off.
00:38:47.000Yeah, when they pull me over, I got a big smile on my face because I know, you know, I do the math.
00:38:51.000If I drove the speed limit, you know, $700 an hour billable time, if I drive the speed limit everywhere I go, I lose this many dollars in my life.
00:39:01.000So if I get pulled over and it's a $600 fine, well, I'm going to make that up in about three weeks of fast driving.