Yes, it's me! Mark Steyn of that ilk - and not dead yet, despite the best efforts of the dirty stinkin' rotten corrupt American "justice" system. For the moment, I am at liberty and thus able to conduct another midweek edition of our Clubland Q&A, taking questions from Mark Steyn Club members around the planet. Our home time zone in North America has sprung into summer, but everywhere else remains fallen back in winter. So for this month only the show starts an hour later in the US, Canada, Jamaica, the Caymans and a few other places such as Panama - that's to say at 4pm North American Eastern Time - but we're at the regular time everywhere else: 8pm Greenwich Mean Time, 9pm in Western Europe, etc.
On today's show I'm happy to talk about whatever's on your mind, including any follow-up questions you might have on the subjects we've touched on at SteynOnline this last week.
~For example, re Donald Trump's inability to post a bond for half-a-billion dollars, Joey Boy tweets:
Is it too late to start a GoFundMe?
Well, he has to come up with the full amount by Monday morning. Can you raise 557 million bucks on GoFundMe in five days? And, if you did, would they give it to you? You can ask the Canadian truckers about that.
~Trump isn't the only American who's a bit short of the necessary. Here is a chap called Max who is not terribly happy about his present level of income. You might think the broader lesson here is about the great evil of pumping schoolgirls full of testosterone, but such a thought would be totally transphobic and, under proposed legislation in Scotland, Ireland and Canada, illegal:
~Before Trump and the Colorado Supreme Court, there was Couy Griffin, a member of the Otero County Board of Commissioners in New Mexico, and a judge called Francis J Matthew of the First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe. Eighteen months ago, Judge Matthew banned Mr Griffin from running for elected office in New Mexico ever again on the grounds that he had "engaged in" insurrection:
The ruling said that Griffin helped "mobilize and incite thousands across the country to join the mob" in Washington, D.C., where he was a speaker in a multi-city bus tour organized by the group Stop the Steal.
"Applying these principles, the Court concludes that Mr. Griffin 'engaged in' the January 6 insurrection," the judge said.
Would being a speaker in a single-city bus tour have been a closer call jurisprudentially-speaking?
Alas, we shall never know. This week the US Supreme Court denied Mr Griffin's petition to review the legitimacy of his lifetime disqualification from political office.
~I'm also happy to take any questions on my other legal battle - against the UK state censor Ofcom over my coverage of the Covid "vaccines". GB News chose to submit to the censor re my show, only to find that Chief Commissars Grade and Dawes are now coming after everything else they do, including even the sainted Nigel, who has belatedly butched up re Ofcom. Ah, if only he and GB management had talked like this a year ago...
Still, the English High Court has accepted my suit, and it will be coming to the King's Bench Division on June 11th. Many listeners have asked how they can support my important free-speech cases on both sides of the Atlantic. There are several ways:
a) signing up a friend for a Steyn Club Gift Membership;
b) buying a near-and-dear one a SteynOnline gift certificate; or
c) ordering a copy of my latest book, The Prisoner of Windsor (you won't regret it, says Kathy Gyngell).
~Whether or not you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club, you can listen to our Clubland Q&A live as it happens wherever you chance to be on this turbulent earth: Club membership is required only to ask a question. We love to hear from brand new members, and among the additions to our ranks in recent days are newbies from around the globe, from Goshen, New Hampshire to Vaughan, Ontario, from Colchester, Essex to Bonogin, Queensland. Whether you've joined this week either for a full year or a see-how-it-goes experimental quarter do shoot me a head-scratcher for today's show.
But, if you're not interested in joining, no worries, as they say in Oz: We seek no unwilling members - and as always the show is free to listen to, so we hope you'll want to tune in.