The Washington Free Beacon is a new online paper with an interesting premise:  unlike MSM papers, which treat liberalism as the norm, and conservativism as a headline grabbing abnormality, this publication gives the big scare headlines to the Left.  In other words, it’s not just that it reports the stories, but that it reports them so as to highlight Progressive malfeasance.

I like the idea.  This site gets a bookmark on my Firefox.

UPDATE:  Matthew Continetti explains what “combat journalism” is and why two can and should play at this, to date, one-sided game.

One of my new year’s resolutions was to try to make more money from my writing.  If I don’t start seeing some money coming in soon, there’s really no way I can justify pouring so much time and energy into my writing.  Instead, I’ll have to start trying to build up my legal work again, work that’s been pretty much dormant since the recession hit.  The problem is that I love writing and that, when it comes to legal work, if I never do it again it’ll be too soon.

With that resolution in mind, I’m starting the process of making money be commercializing my blog more than I ever have or wanted to.  In addition to the usual plea for direct donations through PayPal that’s been living in the sidebar for years, I’ve also added several advertisements to the side bar and, as you all know, some wacky highlighted terms to the text.  I hope that they’re not too irritating, but they’re definitely an experiment that I want and need to make now.

Just a few more words on the subject, and then I’m done:

1.  If an ad intrigues you, please click on it. Otherwise, ignore the ads.  If they’re not intriguing you, they’re either not good ads or not good (or interesting) products.

2.  The Amazon widget is not random the way the Google and highlighted term ads are.  As to the latter, I have no control over the products advertised.  In the Amazon widget, however, you’ll see actual products I’ve used, like, and feel I can recommend.  As to each product, I’ve added a few words explaining why I like it.

3.  If you’re planning on making an Amazon purchase anyway, not of something I’ve recommended, but just of anything, consider getting to Amazon by linking through my widget.  I’m not certain, but I understand that, if you enter the Amazon portal through my widget, I get a very small percentage on anything you buy.  Incidentally, that doesn’t mean I see what you buy or know who you are.  All I know is that a few pennies come my way.

My apologies to any of you who thought I was ignoring your comments, since I didn’t toss in any responding comments of my own. WordPress got a bit backed up and stopped sending me email notifications about comments. Because I seldom check the blog itself for comments, but rely instead on email notifications, I’d been wondering where people were. 

Once my awesome webmaster, Terry Trippany, unplugged the blockage, I suddenly got over 100 emails. You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I don’t respond now. Today was a little over-the-top, and I’m not optimistic about tomorrow. If I do write, I’ll probably just try for new posts.

Every year, blogger extraordinaire Doug Ross publishes a “fabulous 50″ list of top blogs for the year.  I’m very, very pleased to say that this year’s list includes, not only my own Watcher’s Council (with the nice addendum that “All 2011 Council members are winners”), but several other bloggers whom I count as friends.  In addition, there are a lot of familiar names that, I’m sure you agree, totally deserve to be on the list.

You should go check it out.  I bet that you’ll be pleased to see many familiar blogs/bloggers getting the recognition you think that deserve, and you might deserve some other blogs that deserve your attention.

When I first saw the headline — “A $2.5 Million Libel Judgment Brings The Question : Are  Bloggers Journalists?” — I have to admit that I felt a bit queasy.  When I write something snide about President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, or any of the other prominent Democrats I routinely criticize at this site, am I exposing myself to massive liability?  Well, probably not, because they’re public figures and we have enormous latitude to criticize them.  But what about a post I might write criticizing, not a political figure, but a local businessman.  Can he sue me . . . and win?

The answer, it seems to me, is that Mr. Businessman is just as likely to win against blogger as he would have been if, in the old days, I sent nasty letters to the editor, distributed flyers or otherwise widely and impugned his character.  If my statements are true, I win.  If they’re false, I lose.  I would have been at risk in the old days and I’m still at risk in the new if I choose to shout out lies from an electronic rooftop.

So why is the $2.5 million dollar libel judgment an issue?  Because the blogger in question sought to protect herself by claiming that she was a journalist, not a blogger.  She therefore contended that Shield Laws allowed her to hide her sources while successfully protesting her innocence in a defamation lawsuit.  When the judge said she wasn’t a journalist, bloggers got nervous.  After all, we bloggers consider ourselves a “new media,” providing information that the old media, usually for political reasons, often leaves on the cutting room or newsroom floor.  What’s unnerving is that, if we’re not journalists, even when we scrupulously present facts, we’re still at risk of litigation, something that has a very chilling effect even on the most honest writer.

As is so often true with legal cases, though, the details should be comforting — and this is true despite the fact that I think the judge committed a definitional error that must be redressed.  This case, though, is not going to be the one that makes correcting that legal error easy, because the facts really militate against the blogger.  By any standard, Crystal Cox, the defendant against whom the district court judge imposed the $2.5 million libel judgment, was not making any effort to conduct herself according to journalistic norms.  Instead, Cox was the journalistic equivalent of a vexatious litigant.

For those of you who have missed out on the joys of a vexatious litigant (“VL”), a VL is someone who uses the court system to dominate and harass enemies.  These people are often lawyers, and they will file in pro per suits (meaning that they represent themselves) against anyone who crosses their radar.  Since litigation is expensive, a perfectly innocent person might find himself targeted by a plaintiff who has dozens of cases going simultaneously, and who files hundreds of costly motions in each case.  The unwitting defendant can either settle immediately, even though he knows he’s being subject to judicial blackmail, or he must spend the money to answer the case and respond to all the discovery and motions.

While the judge in any given case may impose sanctions against the plaintiff, that’s an uneven remedy.  Eventually, though, if the plaintiff acquires a reputation around the courthouse, a judge can defang him by declaring him a “vexatious litigant” who can proceed in the Court system only with judicial permission.  Although it’s a draconian remedy because we are loath to deny people access to the civil court system, it’s still a necessary thing to do when someone uses the system, not as an instrument of justice, but as a tool for economic blackmail, humiliation and harassment.  As I noted, though, it’s a last remedy, not a first remedy, and a lot of people get badly burned before it goes into effect.

From everything I’ve read about Crystal Cox, her website, titled “www.ObsidianFinanceSucks.com,” was a one woman vendetta against a corporate Bankruptcy trustee and an individual employee, filled with hundreds of posts savagely attacking both of them.  Her claims against them, usually presented in the form of hyperbolic questions, rather than factual statements, accused them of fraud, illegal activity, theft, and just about everything else short of stealing lollipops from babies and using goats for impure purposes.  As the judge made clear in decisions written in both July and August, one would be hard put to classify Cox’s content as objective journalism.

Because Cox’s posts were so over-the-top, the judge concluded fairly easily that they couldn’t possibly be construed as anything other than pure opinion, which is protected under the First Amendment.  He was therefore inclined to dismiss the case against her.  One of her posts, however, had a gloss of journalistic objectivity and, more importantly, showed up at a site where it wasn’t published under the “ObsidianFinanceSucks” heading and where it wasn’t surrounded by dozens of other posts demonstrating that Cox has a monomania that leaves even her “objective” writing highly suspect.  It was in this context that the judge decided Cox wasn’t a journalist, and that her nasty post constituted good, old-fashioned defamation, akin to handing out a flyer in a shopping mall.

Where I differ with Judge Hernandez, although I think he made the correct decision regarding Cox, is in his effort to define objective journalism so as to deny Cox constitutional protection for her statements.  As far as I can tell, his definition puts most of our major media on notice that it’s at risk:

Cox tried to invoke the Shield Law, which allows journalists to protect confidential sources, but Judge Marco Hernandez ruled Cox was not a journalist and therefore not entitled to the protections. He wrote, “there is no evidence of any education in journalism, any credentials or proof of any affiliation with any recognized news entity or proof of adherence to journalistic standards such as editing, fact-checking or disclosures of conflicts of interest.”

While the New York Times, the WaPo, MSNBC and other traditional media sites can undoubtedly claim that their writers hold university credentials, it’s becoming increasingly questionable whether they subscribe to such traditional “journalistic standards . . . as editing, fact-checking or disclosures of conflicts of interest.”  Indeed, one of the things internet bloggers excel at doing is catching the MSM when it fails to follow those journalistic ethics (and one does wonder whether the MSM’s disdain for these basic requirements is something individual writers learn at those credentialed schools).

Given that the MSM so frequently falls very far short of what the judge considers to be ethical minimums, being affiliated with these “recognized news entities” in no way assures the reader that he can rely on the truth of the matter asserted in any given news report.  A reputable blog spot, one that rigorously edits, fact-checks and discloses, should qualify as journalism, and be entitled to all First Amendment protections, without having to pay lip-service to establishment conventions (journalism school, major media affiliation) that, in fact, do not provide any assurance that the content is honest, credible, complete or unbiased.

Since Cox strikes me as a monomaniac with a bee in her butt, I’m somewhat surprised that Eugene Volokh, who is one of the most reputable, insightful legal bloggers and new media journalists out there, is getting involved in this particular case:

Crystal Cox did not respond to our emails and phone calls seeking comment. It appears, however, she plans to continue to fight. She represented herself in the defamation suit, but now has legal help from UCLA Law School and blogger Eugene Volokh. He has taken the case pro bono in hopes of getting the decision reversed. Volokh has written about the First Amendment’s protection of the press, arguing it’s not solely intended for the media as an institution, but anyone doing the work of journalism.

Volokh is right as a matter of law, of course.   Judge Hernandez is simply wrong to define journalism to include only people who have trained in establishment schools and who write for establishment (i.e., Leftist) media, a bright line that would astonish and offend the Founders.

Based on what I’ve been able to glean from Judge Hernandez’s opinions, however, both of which quote extensively from some of the hundreds of posts Cox wrote for “www.ObsidianFinanceSucks.com”, Cox is the wrong defendant to use as a standard for expanding the definition of journalism to include citizen journalists writing at blogs.  Cox’s writing isn’t coherent, factual reporting, with full disclosure.  Instead, it’s a malevolent stew of opinion and hostility.  She’s a vexatious blogger, and a common law defamer, not a legitimate journalist.  Indeed, she’s a perfect example of bad facts making for bad law.  I’m just worried that, if Volokh pursues this, this bad law will be enshrined at an appellate level, rather than merely at the district court level.

Today, while I wasn’t looking, my site meter crept past the 2,000,000 mark.  Pretty cool — and many thanks to all of you for making it possible.

We all met Navy One when he was just one of us — a guy who wrote delightful, interesting comments on my blog.  When Navy One decided to try his hand at blogging, he took that same charm and . . . well, the rest is history, as The Mellow Jihadi, launched just this spring, is now one of John Hawkins’ top 40 conservative blogs.  (And keep in mind that Navy One, who is active duty, keeps his blog assiduously apolitical and non-partisan.  The conservativism comes about because he espouses ordinary values, decency and common sense, not because he actually writes about things political.)

Join me in offering Navy One a big huzzah!!!

(P.S.  Others of you are equally good writers.  I’m so glad you come here and comment but I would be remiss if I didn’t say that you might also want to try flapping your wings by setting up your own sites.  Cream does rise to the top.)

I got an email from John Hawkins at Right Wing News (where I sometimes post things I think are worthy), and thought I’d pass it on to you directly:

If you’re a fan of Ann Coulter, you will absolutely LOVE this list. It’s ultimate list of Ann Coulter quotes.

The 50 Best Ann Coulter Quotes Of All-Time

A few samples.

35) This is liberalism’s real strength. It is no longer susceptible to reductio ad absurdium arguments. Before you can come up with a comical take on their worldview, some college professor has already written an article advancing the idea.

19) The reason any conservative’s failing is always major news is that it allows liberals to engage in their very favorite taunt: Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy is the only sin that really inflames them. Inasmuch as liberals have no morals, they can sit back and criticize other people for failing to meet the standards that liberals simply renounce. It’s an intriguing strategy. By openly admitting to being philanderers, draft dodgers, liars, weasels and cowards, liberals avoid ever being hypocrites.

9) I just want to say: I think it’s fantastic that the Democrats have finally come out against race discrimination. Any day now, maybe they’ll come out for fighting the Cold War. Perhaps 100 years from now, they’ll be ready to fight the war on terrorism or champion the rights of the unborn. It would be a big help, though, if Democrats could support good causes when it mattered.

2) It’s a perverse world when the most aggressive people are always wailing about their victimhood. In what other place or time have people boasted about how wretched they are? Isn’t it more natural to claim to be better than you are than to claim to be worse than you are? But instead of falsely claiming to be rich or of royal lineage, in modern America people seek rewards by falsely asserting they are victims — of homophobes, hypocrites, Karl Rove, racists, Republicans, and oppressive Alaska governors.

Once again, you can read it all here.

PS: Right Wing News has had a reboot. We have a new layout, we’ve added columns, and a tremendous array of links and blog posts. You should DEFINITELY check it out.

I’m still working, so I checked in with my blog and saw that people from far away are checking in too:

Welcome, friends!

So many of you are superb writers, and I have wondered why you don’t start your own blogs.  Navy One finally did, and it’s become one of my regular go-to places.  He keeps it apolitical (he’s active duty), but it’s just a pleasure to read because he’s a wonderful writer and the kind of thinker with whom one wants to spend more time.

Flush with his blogging success, Navy One has branched out and written for American Thinker a beautiful encomium to his Marine drill instructor.  I like to think that my children will regard me in the same light one day….

Anyway, take a moment out from the news and the wars and the horrible air show accidents (my thoughts and prayers are working overtime for that one), and read something that will make you feel happy.  (Clearly, feeling happier is one of my current themes, although I promise not to go all saccharine on you guys.)