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:

 

 

The current leader of the National Alliance, William Williams, offered the following spin on the loss:

Right. The National Alliance is #winning.

It also seems clear that Mr. Williams isn't aware that, in the Canadian legal system, the individual who loses a suit may be assessed the costs of the case. In this situation, Paulie appears to have been assessed costs at a total of $9000.00

Williams refers to this as a fine:

In other good news, Mr. Richard Warman was successful in yet another libel suit related to the Anne Cools smear made against him. In this case, it was against a former Conservative Party of Canada staffer:

 

 

The Anne Cools smear against Mr. Warman has it's origins in his ultimately successful human rights complaint against former Heritage Front leader Marc Lemire:

 

Successful in all the other cases, the only remaining outstanding libel actions related to the Anne Cools smear are Connie and Mark Fournier of Free Dominion. Neither appear willing to throw in the towel, which we suspect may very well go quite poorly for them. But the Fourniers seem to have a vested interest in slaying the dragon they have imagined Mr. Warman to be:

They might want to consider quitting while they are well behind.

Finally, some unfortunate, if not entirely unexpected, news:

White supremacist acquitted of assault with pepper spray in dispute with man who insulted Hitler

Again sadly, this isn't actually much of a surprise given what we have been hearing about this trial. But even even though he was found not guilty, the judge made it pretty clear that he didn't believe McKee was actually innocent:

Cummings, despite acquitting McKee of assault with a weapon and carrying a weapon dangerous to the public, had little good to say about him. The judge noted “McKee has a clear motive to lie by wanting to avoid yet another weapons-related offence of violence on the charges he now faces.”

While the judge called McKee a “highly deceptive witness,” he was “not on trial for his own belief system or for his association with those who may share those beliefs,” but that doesn’t mean he should ignore those aspects when assessing how he receives his evidence.

“He professes admiration for the principles espoused by Adolf Hitler, wears tattoos displaying symbols associated with that very dark era in history, the swastika, espouses preferences for white cultures implying his intolerance for all others and belongs to a ‘Blood and Honour’ group comprised of like-minded individuals,” Cummings said.

“He labelled Hitler’s dogma as ‘National Socialism,’ not Nazism … pure and simply, McKee’s moral compass is set in a direction diametrically opposed to me being able to favour his testimony as being worthy of belief.”

So while McKee wasn't a believable witness, the defence wasn't able to prove it's case definitively. Thus, not guilty, though hardly innocent.

But feeling smug, McKee has taken to the Internet to comment on articles discussing the case. In one, he (along with Kirk Delmo) engage with another poster regarding the finer points of National Socialism and how McKee is really just a misunderstood and maligned white guy. The other has McKee bragging about how he beat attempted murder charges, though his suggestion that the charges were thrown out sort of ignores his guilty plea to possessing bomb making materials.

Ce' la vie.