Mike Cernovich

Rumors regarding the make-up of the jury that voted to convict Roger Stone floated around, but no reporter would publicly identify the juror. One juror has revealed herself in a CNN story:

(CNN) A juror on the Roger Stone trial said she wants to “stand up” for the four prosecutors who withdrew from the case in response to their sentencing recommendation being changed by Department of Justice leadership.

Tomeka Hart said she had remained silent about the case for months out of concern for her safety and “politicizing the matter.”

Tomeka Hart has an active social media profile.

https://twitter.com/hartformemphis/status/1109835485516570625

Here are some of her Tweets about Trump and those close to Trump

There are dozens of posts expressing hatred for Trump, which is her right as a citizen.

But how did she get on a jury involving Trump’s longtime close friend?

https://twitter.com/hartformemphis/status/896883626150940673

How did a federal court judge ever allow a far left wing activist to sit on a case where a close Trump associate faced trial?

This juror also had political aspirations.

FWIW, the juror is also a former Democratic congressional candidate in Tennessee https://t.co/G4i9bnSklQ

— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) February 13, 2020

The Roger Stone prosecution is a disgrace, it’s lawless, and it was rigged from the beginning.

Roger Stone was convicted on November 15, 2019.

Here is the Tweet from one of the jurors who voted to convict Roger Stone, from the same day. pic.twitter.com/p54zkoMDCB

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) February 13, 2020

• About the author: Mike Cernovich is a journalist, author, and filmmaker. Read more about him here.

Who is Mike Cernovich?

Patreon has lost several high profile creators including Sam Harris, Dave Rubin, and Jordan Peterson due to Patreon’s decision to begin censoring creators for ideological reasons.

The belief is that Patreon can ban anyone they want to. Is this true under California law?

“Private companies can do whatever they want,” is an old canard repeated by people who aren’t lawyers or aren’t very good lawyers. But a new legal remedy is available under California’s arbitration law, especially with the adoption of SB-707.

There’s an economic relationship between Creators and their Backers.

Patreon, by banning a Creator, disrupts the economic relationship between Creator and Backer. In legal terms this is called tortious interference with a business relationship.

Backers can demand to have the disruption of this relationship sent to arbitration.

Patreon, under California law, must pay the arbitration fees in advance. These fees can be upward of $10,000 per case.

If 500 backers demanded arbitration, Patreon would need to put up five million dollars in advance in filing fees alone. Legal fees will ramp those fees up by a factor of ten.

And judges are enforcing the law strictly:

DoorDash Ordered to Pay $9.5M to Arbitrate 5,000 Labor Disputes:

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – Rejecting claims that the legal process it forced on workers is unfair, a federal judge Monday ordered food-delivery service DoorDash to pay $9.5 million in arbitration fees for 5,010 delivery drivers’ labor demands against the company.

“You’re going to pay that money,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup said in court. “You don’t want to pay millions of dollars, but that’s what you bargained to do and you’re going to do it.”

Patreon has tried writing itself out of this legal requirement with amended Terms of Service, which took effect on January 3, 2020:

You may not bring a claim against us for suspending or terminating another person’s account, and you agree you will not bring such a claim. If you try to bring such a claim, you are responsible for the damages caused, including attorneys fees and costs.

This provision is unlawful and unenforceable, because Patreon demands all users abide by JAMS Streamlined Arbitration Rules and Procedures:

If a dispute does arise out of these terms or related to your use of Patreon, and it cannot be resolved after you talk with us, then it must be resolved by arbitration. This arbitration must be administered by JAMS under the JAMS Streamlined Arbitration Rules and Procedures, except as expressly provided below. Judgment on the arbitration entered in any court with jurisdiction. Arbitrations may only take place on an individual basis. No class arbitrations or other other grouping of parties is allowed. By agreeing to these terms you are waiving your right to trial by jury or to participate in a class action or representative proceeding; we are also waiving these rights.

Under California law, a consumer cannot be forced to pay costs and fees under a mandatory arbitration clause. California law is clear:

For matters involving consumers, the consumer is only required to pay $250. See JAMS Policy on Consumer Arbitrations Pursuant to Pre-Dispute Clauses. For matters based on a clause or agreement that is required as a condition of employment, the employee is only required to pay $400. See JAMS Policy on Employment Arbitrations, Minimum Standards of Fairness.

In other words, if Patreon bans a Creator, and the Backers want to file arbitration claims, Patreon will have to be millions of dollars of fees.

As one law firm specialization in arbitration law notes:

SB 707 applies to employment or consumer arbitration agreements and requires that the drafting party pay any fees and costs that might be due before the arbitration can proceed within 30 days after the due date. The failure by the drafting party to pay will mean that the drafting party is in material breach of the arbitration agreement, is in default of the arbitration and will waive its right to compel arbitration

There is no exception to this law, and Patreon cannot draft its way out of California law with a Terms of Service update. Again, California law provides:

With respect to the cost of the arbitration, when a consumer initiates arbitration against the company, the only fee required to be paid by the consumer is $250, which is approximately equivalent to current Court filing fees. All other costs must be borne by the company, including any remaining JAMS Case Management Fee and all professional fees for the arbitrator’s services. When the company is the claiming party initiating an arbitration against the consumer, the company will be required to pay all costs associated with the arbitration.

Patreon may win on the grounds that its Terms of Service as of January 2020 apply to all creators banned in 2020 or beyond. It’s unlikely they will, because courts look unfavorably on parties who demand arbitration while seeking to opt-out of rules they don’t like.

My best guess is that if a Creator or Backer sued Patreon to have the fee-shifting provision struck from the Terms of Service, then that party would prevail.

Any Patreon creator banned before 2020 will have favorable procedural rules, and Backers bringing claims will not be required to pay more than $250.

The same rules would also apply to PayPal and other companies with mandatory arbitration provisions.

Tamiflu trended on Facebook today after a story about a mother who lost her child to the flu went viral. According to the story, the mother did not administer prescribed medication to the child, who died.

The mother disputes this account. In an interview with her local news station, the grief-stricken mother says:

“I’m hurting so bad right now and so is his dad and his brothers. Our whole family is hurting. And it’s like we feel like we failed because we did what we had to do. We called the doctors. We called the hospital. We gave them the medicine we were instructed to give. We did everything,” she said in an interview over the phone.

Watch the interview with the mother here:

The mother faced death threats and demands she be put into prison:

“Words fail,” seems cheap to write, a cliche. I can’t comprehend the mother’s grief of losing a child – only to face online death threats and harassment and to be called a baby killer. Based on a hoax news story. This is a level of sadness I hope to never fully comprehend.

The reporter who incited a mob against a mother who lost her child did not interview the mother before publishing her story.

Although I am strongly pro-vaccine, the mother was treated as “fair game” because she belonged to forums where they discussed alternative health remedies.

NBC remains in litigation involved it its coverage of the Covington Catholic high school student Nick Sandmann. Read about that lawsuit here.

Read more about Mike Cernovich here:

Who is Mike Cernovich?

Nancy Pelosi tore up a copy of Trump’s State of the Union Speech in a night of high drama, which began with Trump refusing to shake the Speaker’s hand. Who won the battle of persuasion?

First some principles of memory and persuasion:

• Recency wins the memory wars.
• Conflict is attention.
• Attention is influence.
• People need a “fake because” to resolve cognitive dissonance.

Overlooked in persuasion is memory. What people remember is what they find most persuasive. Read Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions by Carmen Simon.

By ripping the pages up in at the end of the speech, Pelosi won the memory battle. This was a huge win for her.

Conflict is attention. Let Dana White explain this maxim of persuasion:

• “If you take four street corners, and on one they are playing baseball, on another they are playing basketball and on the other, street hockey, on the fourth corner, a fight breaks out. Where does the crowd go? They all go to the fight.”

Everyone will stop whatever they are doing to watch a fight. Pelosi started a fight. We are watching. Which brings us to one of the most well-studied principles of persuasion.

Attention is influence.  Whatever you pay attention to is what you consider to be important. Focus on a health problem and you’ll imagine you’re going to die.

Who you pay the most attention to is who you consider to be important.  Read Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert B. Cialdini.

Pelosi won the attention war.

Re: Nancy’s tantrum, I think it’s an error for those of us in the America First movement to focus there.

Pres Trump delivered a soaring, inspiring, tour de force tutorial on American exceptionalism.

Let’s focus on this command performance, a triumph of both substance & optics.

— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) February 5, 2020

However….

People need a “fake because” to resolve cognitive dissonance. Imagine you hate Trump. He’s vulgar. He’s selfish. He puts himself above the grand old institutions of this nation. You can’t bring yourself to vote for him.

And then you look at your 401k, you see the economy is booming, you see terrorists being destroyed.

You want to vote for him, but you can’t bring yourself to do it. Your image of yourself as a good person (and good people don’t vote for Trump) conflicts with the objectively good results Trump has obtained.

What do you do?

During the State of the Union Speech, a time to bring the country together for respect for the House, Senate, Court, and Presidency, Pelosi makes mean nasty faces. She refuses to stand to honor great African American war heroes, and current war heroes.

And then, and then….

And then Pelosi rips up the State of the Union Speech, shredding any legitimacy she has.

Pelosi's act dishonored the institution and destroyed even the pretense of civility and decorum in the House. If this is the Speaker's "drop the mike" moment, it is a disgrace that should never be celebrated or repeated. In a single act, she obliterated decades of tradition.

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 5, 2020

You now have what Scott Adams calls your fake because. (Read Loserthink by Scott Adams.)

There are no democratic norms! There is no decency! Everyone is bad!

Pelosi gave you and millions of people a reason to vote for Trump.

“With Shadow, we’re building a new model incentivized by adoption over growth,” Mayor Pete supporter and Shadow app founder Tara McGowan Tweeted on January 17, 2019.

After the Iowa Causes were sent into chaos last night, McGowan went into cover-up mode.

Suddenly Shadow was a completely “independent company,” which she had nothing to do with!

Here are the facts about @anotheracronym’s relationship to @ShadowIncHQ, an independent company ACRONYM invested in. We don’t have any information beyond the public statements the IDP has put out + like all of you, eagerly await learning what happened and who won the IA caucus. https://t.co/sWohZqZkPe

— Tara McGowan (@taraemcg) February 4, 2020

Compare that statement to what McGowan Tweeted last year.

“If we want to build real political power, we need to fix this problem and at Shadow, we’ve got a plan, the talent and the resources to make it happen. So I’m pretty stoked. If you want to learn more about Shadow’s roadmap + team, DM me or @gjniemira – we’d LOVE to nerd out w/ you.”

She was making hiring decisions, using “we” to talk about Shadow, and was “stoked.”

Forget she said any of that!

Shadow App Founder Tara McGowan was also a Mayor Pete supporter.

Media Men Mop Up Mayor’s Mess.

Shadow App was a disaster for all but Mayor Pete, who declared himself a winner last night. Shadow app’s founder is a Mayor Pete supporter.

Here we have a case of Big Tech covering up their connection to an app plus an obvious conflict of interest.

Instead of showing any interest in this story, the New York Times has assigned its top tech reporter to cover how many “likes” people are getting on Facebook.

https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1224765131139272705