Munger Proxy/Attorney & CRP Vice Chair Harmeet Dhillon Sues the Munger Games-Over Old Photo

Munger Proxy/Attorney & CRP Vice Chair Harmeet Dhillon Sues the Munger Games

Munger Games, 7/30/13

Charles Munger Jr. is suing The Munger Games.

Not Munger specifically, but his attorney: Harmeet Dhillon, the vice chairperson of the California Republican Party and Charles Munger Jr.’s attorney.

Dhillon has filed a complaint with our hosting company, claiming “copyright infringement.” The alleged offense? In this February 12 post entitled “Meet Harmeet,” TMG used a headshot of Dhillon we found on the Internet. [For some reason, the photo is no longer in the post.]

According to her complaint, Dhillon alleges the photo in question was from a candidate photo shoot for her failed 2008 Assembly campaign for which she paid $250, and she alleges The Munger Games infringed on her copyright but not asking her permission to use the photo.

Leaving aside that use of the photo falls squarely within the commonly accepted “fair use” doctrine, a quick Google Images search shows the very same photo used in posts on Dhillon on other blogs and websites:

Here.

Here.

Here.

And here.

We find it difficult to believe all of the above asked permission to use the same photo, and it is almost certain Ms. Dhillon isn’t harassing them with lawsuits.

Of course, her lawsuit is a Trojan Horse. It’s true purpose is revealed by the subsequent subpoena she served on our hosting company:

“Documents sufficient to identify the account information for the domain name “Mungergames.net,”…including the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses of the owner(s) of the domain name, “Mungergames.net.”

it’s fairly obvious Dhillon could care less about “copyright infringement” over a lousy photograph.As a sharp attorney, she’s no doubt aware her case is a weak one. No doubt acting at Munger’s behest, she is trying to find out who is behind this blog in order to hit them with lawsuits in a bald attempt to silence The Munger Games.

We suppose it was bound to happen, and not because The Munger Games has said anything untrue. Despite his cultivated aura of political and social moderation and tolerance, Munger is an incredibly thin-skinned bully with no tolerance for criticism.

And this isn’t the first time he’s used his vast inherited wealth to try to litigate a critic into oblivion. Last year, Munger sued an impoverished political activist named Richard Winger:

Anyway, there’s an old fellow named Richard Winger runs a blog called Ballot Access News. He opposed Munger’s Proposition 14, which gave us the top-two primary, because it would effectively disenfranchise third-party candidates. Winger filed a lawsuit to overturn Proposition 14. He lost, and Munger – a multi-millionaire many times over – is trying to force Winger to pay the $243,000 legal bill that Munger incurred as a result of Winger’s lawsuit.

Mind you, the elderly Winger’s income is about $6,000 a year, according to the Los Angeles Times. Munger, on the other hand, has spent almost $43 million on political projects just in the last year – and he still has lots of lots of lucre left.

This lawsuit is more of the same bullying tactics. Due his inability to deal with criticism, we have the spectacle of Munger using as his catspaw the Vice Chair of the California Republican Party in an attempt to bludgeon a blog into silence.

Not going to happen.

The Munger Games is not going to roll over and play dead. We are going to move to quash the subpoena and will fight this intemperate, intolerant lawsuit.

There’s more to come, since Munger has now given us more to write about than we ever dreamed.