Dem
51
GOP
49
Sometimes, many readers submit the same story for consideration for this feature. This week, the popular suggestion involved news that just broke yesterday, around noon PT. Surely, we must have set a record for the most times an item was suggested in a 12-hour span.
This particular story involves MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell. In the cocaine-fueled phase of his life, and in the pillow-tycoon phase—phases which may or may not have overlapped—he could probably get away with saying any damn thing he wanted to say without suffering any consequences. But then, in a turn of fate that will leave generations of historians mystified, he became a public figure. A minor one, to be sure, and primarily a target of scorn and derision, but a public figure nonetheless.
As is turns out, public figures have to be much more careful about what they say. Fox just learned a lesson of that sort this week (not that they will take it to heart since, after all, they have no heart). And yesterday, Lindell learned a lesson of that sort, too, as an arbitration panel ordered Lindell to write a check for $5 million to Robert Zeidman.
"Who is Robert Zeidman?" you are probably asking. Well, he is the person who adds an extra dollop of schadenfreude to this item. See, Lindell is still at huge risk of taking it in the teeth from Dominion Voting Systems, Smartmatic and other entities he has (allegedly) defamed. The $5 million, while related to Lindell's election fraud claims, actually has nothing to do with defamation.
The secret of Lindell's success in business is not the quality of his products (middling, at best). No, it's his marketing acumen, and his willingness to make dishonest claims about his products. For example, he has for years and years run commercials claiming a "special" sale price—two pillows for the price of one. Obviously, if you can always get two pillows for the price of one, that's not the "special" sale price, that's just the price. He was sanctioned by the Better Business Bureau for that after he refused to knock it off, which is part of the reason that his business carries a rare "F" grade from that organization.
Anyhow, in order to generate interest in his various election-fraud-related TV specials, Lindell put on his marketing hat (which, let's be honest, is probably made of tinfoil), and decided to announce a $5 million prize for anyone who could prove that his election data was fake. Zeidman is a data analyst and, while he's a self-described "conservative Republican," he is not a "stop the steal" conservative Republican. So, he decided to take on what was announced as the "Prove Mike Wrong Challenge."
Although serious data analysis takes multiple weeks, according to Zeidman, Lindell's data was "so obviously fake that I spent a few hours before I could show it was fake." And so, Zeidman applied for the $5 million prize, was denied by the Pillow magnate, and turned around and sued. And now, he's on his way to being $5 million richer for just a few hours' work. Lindell has already promised to take the matter to court, but: (1) his case was already weak, which is why he lost, and (2) he seems not to understand the meaning of the word "binding" in the context of the phrase "binding arbitration." If Lindell was smart, which he isn't, he would try to settle for small discount, like maybe $4.5 million. But he's undoubtedly going to fight this out until the end, which means he'll likely be writing that $5 million check before the year is out. Zeidman should just make sure to get his money before Dominion and Smartmatic get to Lindell. (Z)