Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Update to 'Suit against John Oliver and HBO dismissed,' top post for the seventh year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News


Suit against John Oliver and HBO dismissed from March 2, 2018 was the most read entry of March 2018, the seventh year of this blog, and of all time with 20,111 raw page views, 20067 according to the default counter.  Wow!  Before I write about how it got that way, it's time for an update.  Thanks to Lawful Masses with Leonard French on YouTube, I have one: Bob Murray Goes Nuts, Gets Squirrelly Over John Oliver Case Dismissal.

Judge Cramer in Marshall County, West Virginia posted a letter on the docket shortly after dismissing Bob Murray's lawsuit against John Oliver, Last Week Tonight, and HBO. The letter comes from Mr. Murray, himself, and he's pretty salty. Let's read his attempt to guilt-trip the judge into reconsidering the dismissal.
TechDirt quoted Judge Jeffrey Cramer's response to the letter as well as his rationale for making it public.
This date the Court received the attached unsolicited missive from the Plaintiff, Robert E. Murray. As it does not appear Mr. Murray forwarded copies of the same to Defense Counsel, pursuant to Rule 2.9(B) of the West Virginia Rules of Judicial Conduct, the Court has copied and enclosed the correspondence herein and filed the original in the Court's file.

Mr. Murray's letter is an improper ex parte communication with the Court, therefore the request to reconsider the Court's decision cannot and will not be entertained.

The Court respectfully requests Plaintiffs' Counsel to advise Mr. Murray against future ex parte correspondence which could result in sanctions against the Plaintiffs in this matter.
In other words, don't do that again.  Also, this is not how to file an appeal, something Murray and his lawyers have been promising to do since Judge Cramer notified them that he was dismissing the case.
“This decision contains absolutely no legal reasoning whatsoever, and instead blindly adopts the defendants deeply flawed arguments. This is a flagrant disregard of the law, the facts, and the substantial damages intentionally inflicted by the defendants,” according to a statement from the company.

“We will immediately appeal, and we are confident that we will prevail.”
Immediately?  That hasn't happened yet.

I'll give Jamie Lynn Crofts of the ACLU of West Virginia the final say on the letter.
“Other than the fact that Bob Murray’s case against John Oliver is a ridiculous attempt to quell speech by abusing our legal system, it really is the gift that keeps on giving. With the disdain Mr. Murray has shown for our constitution and our legal system, I’m not surprised that he would also improperly try to influence a judge in this way (or with such a hilarious letter). Unfortunately for Bob, everything John Oliver has said on his show was and continues to be protected speech. It is, in fact, legal for anyone to say, ‘Consume defecation, Bob.'”
I'm tempted, but I won't.  It's not civil.  Besides, I can't top what Crofts wrote.

Follow over the jump for my recollection and analysis of how the original post reached number one.

I shared the link to this entry at the Join the Coffee Party Movement Facebook page the night after it was written.  Normally, I'd have followed its progress closely.  Unfortunately, my power went out less than three hours after the link was posted, so I had no idea how well it did until I went to Starbucks the next night.  That was when I found out that it leapt to number one on the all-time top ten within 24 hours.  Talk about an unwatched pot boiling!  It helped attract 2450 page views to the blog the hour it was shared and 16,732 page views the day it was shared, which is a record for page views per day.  The people who read the Coffee Party Movement Facebook page love John Oliver.

When the post entered the all-time top ten, it knocked Michigan recount still on as Trump fails to stop it while Schuette still trying from December 2, 2016 with 4892 default and 5321 raw page views.  That had been the third most read post for the sixth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News and the fourth of all time and now it's off the top ten entirely.  Sic transit gloria mundi.

The displacement of a previous year's popular post is emblematic of the kind of year it's been, as only two posts remain from last year's top ten.  They are Last Week Tonight examines Clinton and Trump foundations after winning three Emmy Awards from September 27, 2016, the top post for the sixth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News, which shows how popular John Oliver with this blog's readers, and Trump thinks Sanders is the right enemy, the top post of the fifth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.  All eight of the other posts in the all-time top ten are new.

Stay tuned for retrospectives of the remaining posts that earned more than 2000 raw page views last blogging year, all 46 of them, including twelve that feature John Oliver.  Believe me when I say how popular he is!

Previous entries in this series.
Entries about top posts from previous years.

2 comments:

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    1. As best as I can remember, I don't have an entry about New York restaurants. Too bad, as I might let this spam stay. As it is, I'm deleting it.

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