The Sgt Schultz defense

We're supposed to believe that not only did Harper know nothing about Wright's $90,000 cheque to Duffy, he also knew nothing about the previous plan to get the Conservative Party to pay Duffy's expenses and he knew nothing about the phone call to the auditors to try to stop the Duffy audit.


So what WAS Harper paying such attention to in February and March, 2013, that he didn't bother to ask anyone about the Duffy situation?  Well, the NHL lockout ended in January, the Brier was in March, and in April Justin Trudeau was elected Liberal leader.

I feel like Charlie Brown's football

Every time I start to think that maybe the Harper Cons aren't so bad, I find out that actually, they're worse.
When disaster strikes somewhere in the world, like now with the recent Philippines storm, our government routinely now announces it will match Canadian donations.  Pretty generous, I've thought.
Remarkably generous.
But now I find out that even though I am giving my donation to a charitable group, the Harper Cons are maybe not:

The Conservative government has severed long-standing ties with many of Canada’s largest and oldest aid organizations over the past few years, and instead focused its efforts on mining companies and other private sector actors.

Mining companies?
Yes it turns out to be true -- see here and here.
As usual, I'm the last to know.
Sigh.

Just shut up

Production costs?  Oh, give me a break.
Big City Lib suggests a secret statement and Montreal Simon says The Ford Nation is Dead !!!!  Mound of Sound suspects that Ottawa has sent the message now.
Yes, I think its pretty obvious what happened.
While initially welcoming the distraction from the Senate expenses scandal, the Harper Cons watched in horror as the Rob Ford story blew up into an international clusterf*ck that will tarnish Harper's own righteous image and endanger his crucial Toronto seats.
So sometime Sunday afternoon or Monday, somebody made an uncomfortable phone call to Sun News and told them to find some excuse to get the Ford family circus off the air.

Now there's something you don't see everyday

I hate to link to the Toronto Sun, but here's the cartoon which Warren Kinsella tweets is the best editorial cartoon of the year:

Rider Pride

Roughriders rout Stampeders; heading home to play in Grey Cup

Krusty and his brother will now be appearing on Sun News

Sun News thinks they're going to cash in big by giving the Ford brothers a weekly TV show?
They just destroyed their credibility as a news network.  Here's the twitter reaction:

There is just something fundamentally wrong with rewarding this behaviour with a TV gig. Kory Teneycke lacks a moral compass. #topoli
— Steve V (@FarAndWide) November 15, 2013

Right after "Ow, My Balls!" RT @cityslikr: On CNN Anderson Cooper speechless at news that the Fords are being given a TV talk show. #TOpoli
— billmon (@billmon1) November 15, 2013

RT @glen_mcgregor: A crack-smoking inebriate and national embarrassment? Yeah, let's give him a TV show! http://t.co/dfq2YnaFNL #topoli
— Michael Shapcott (@michaelshapcott) November 14, 2013

Yet another reason not to watch Sun News: Ford demands respect for his privacy - so signs up for TV show #topoli http://t.co/4L8zbBLthH
— Michael Shapcott (@michaelshapcott) November 14, 2013

Wonder how Ezra Levant feels about losing his title as biggest loon on the network. Tough day for him I bet. #topoli
— Steve V (@FarAndWide) November 14, 2013

Beautiful

I saw this on twitter -- a migrating pod of Beluga whales in Nunavut Inlet:

Lest we forget? The Harper Cons have forgotten

Before any other kids sign up for the Canadian forces, I hope they (and their parents) realize that their service is no longer honoured by the Harper Cons.  If they are injured on duty, the Harper Cons will throw them away.
Mike Duffy can get more than $100,000 from the Harper Cons.  Canadian soldiers, not so much.
The Harper Cons will, of course, continue to show up for battle honours ceremonies and ribbon-cuttings at memorials. But when it comes to really supporting the troops -- giving them enough money to live on after their service to Canada has cost them their health and their capacity to work - the Harper Cons are nowhere to be found.
Barbara Kay's National Post column demonstrates that the Harper Cons have already forgotten Canada's soldiers:

Today there are more than 76,000 veterans suffering from lifelong disabilities springing directly from their military service, a casualty rate of more than 10%. ... less than 1% of Canada’s veterans are receiving any economic benefits from VAC. VAC recognizes only 1,428 veterans as eligible for economic support until age 65, a mere 0.2% of Canadian Forces veterans. It is estimated that fewer than half are receiving the seriously-injured allowance to which they are entitled.
Other federal actions also rankle. Reports suggest veterans are being discharged before they reach the 10-year limit at which they are eligible to receive a pension. And a fund to help pay burial costs for veterans only applies to the most hard-up of cases, excluding almost anyone short of abject poverty.

Rick Mercer's rant deserves repeating:


November 11 has become a shameful day.

Proof positive

Well there's one thing that the Rob Ford administration proves beyond a shadow of a doubt: any idiot can run the city of Toronto.

Mayor Rob Ford's own deputy mayor and council speaker publicly urged him to take a leave of absence, protesters outside city hall demanded his resignation, one of his longest-serving aides resigned, and an ex-wrestler showed up to yell things at him.
Ford’s response: a kiss, blown at the journalists to whom he said not a word. . . .
Ford promised Sunday to meet the media “anywhere” other than his home. But he has not yet made himself available to face any of the numerous questions he has not yet answered on the extent of his use of illegal drugs, his associations with criminals, and his secret meetings with an accused drug dealer now charged with extortion for allegedly attempting to obtain the video Ford said in May “doesn’t exist.”

His second press conference yesterday showed that Ford sees himself as the victim in all of this, unfairly persecuted for being a drunken lout who just luuuvvvves his city soooooo much.

The least of these

Why is it so startling to see true Christianity in action?
Pope Francis Kisses Severely Disfigured Man And Prays With Him  Francis saw the man from his car, stopped the motorcade, went and hugged him and prayed with him.


The commenters at Buzzfeed said the man has Neurofibromatosis, tumors of the face, a very disfiguring and painful condition.

A thing of beauty

Watch this expert driver back a 50' trailer into a space that I might have trouble backing into with my car:

Here's your laugh for today

A question for Toronto

I have a question for the 380,000 people in Toronto who thought two years ago that Rob Ford would be a good mayor.  What possessed you to think that he was ever going to be anything but a loud-mouthed schnook?
What's that you say?  You thought he would rise to the occasion?  Based on what evidence?
Now Toronto is saying mea culpa mea culpa mea culpa mea culpa, along with "I told you so"
But its too late -- Ford won't resign, he doesn't have the capacity to do the right thing.
He'll just stay on and on, ineffective, bumbling around, drunk, coked-up, a national and international embarrassment.
Toronto Star columnist Royson James writes:

Rob Ford is our creation — all of us.
That includes media who coddled him and refused to follow his discreditable conduct with any vigour; and media who scoffed at Star reporters who reported what they had seen. As the Star reporter Robyn Doolittle said, “Journalism was on trial.”
What she didn’t say, but no doubt believes, is journalism was on trial and too many journalists testified in favour of the bad guys and against the public interest.
Too many city councillors looked the other way when it was clear the mayor had some kind of substance abuse problem.
Too many council colleagues joined forces with the mayor when they knew the proper thing to do was to shun him and insist he get help before sitting in his camp. They did so because of the intoxicating effects of power. They wanted to be players.
Too many citizens, hoping to save a few tax dollars, were willing to forgive the mayor of any and all indiscretions. They didn’t want to hear about the train wreck of his personal life. They were willing to sell out the city for a few dollars of perceived city hall “gravy.”
Through it all, Mayor Ford exercised poor judgment, showed no familiarity with the truth, blustered and prevaricated and did everything to disguise his true nature.
And we let him get away with it, despite evidence to the contrary.

Ain't we havin' some fun now

Two cheques: Duffy says Conservative lawyer covered his $13,500 legal expenses:

Duffy tabled a document with the Senate that shows Arthur Hamilton, the Conservative party lawyer, signed off on a payment of $13,560 to Duffy's legal representative last April 3.. . . "That's right. One cheque from Nigel Wright? No, ladies and gentlemen, there were two cheques — at least two cheques."
An audible gasp went up from the gathered senators.

But wait, there's more:

He had said he suspected that the money to cover the cheque had come from the Conservative party—”the base’s money … to make this all go away.” He had said that Mr. Wright had objected to some action of Marjory LeBreton, government leader in the Senate at the time.
“But there is more,” he said.
He said his discussion with the Prime Minister and Mr. Wright on February 13 was not a casual encounter, but an arranged meeting. He repeated that Mr. Harper had told him the Senate’s rules were “inexplicable to our base.”
“Wait,” Mr. Duffy said. “There is even more.”
He recalled how he had said he took out a loan from the Royal Bank of Canada to cover the repayment of his expenses.
“That line about RBC was part of a script written for me and emailed to me by the PMO,” he declared.

That was perhaps the most astonishing speech ever given in the senate. An incredible performance & allegations by #mikeduffy #cdnpoli
— Steve Paikin (@spaikin) October 28, 2013

Integrity is more than fear of looking bad

Finding myself agreeing with Andrew Coyne is an odd position to be in, and makes me doubt myself.
But anyway, I do find this part of his column interesting:

At the heart of it remains Wright’s mysterious decision to cut Duffy a cheque from his personal account: still unexplained, still inexplicable, and not only because of its apparent illegality.... Why risk so much for so seemingly little?... Somehow a number of people around the prime minister absorbed the idea that it was okay to break the law to make an embarrassing political problem go away. That’s deeply troubling, whatever he told them, or they him. 

And Tasha Kheiriddin also connects some of the dots:

And when the issue of integrity is at stake, they won’t hesitate to sacrifice one of their own. ... Maxime Bernier resigned from cabinet in disgrace in 2008 after leaving NATO documents at the home of his ex-girlfriend, who had been linked to organized-crime figures. ...Helena Guergis was turfed in 2010 on unspecified allegations regarding her conduct, fueled by news reports that her husband, former MP Rahim Jaffer, had consorted with con men and “busty hookers.” Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was hauled before a commission of inquiry in 2008 over his relationship with fraudster Karl-Heinz Schreiber.
Why did the Conservative government pick on these cases, while others [Bev Oda, Tony Clement] resulted in no penalties? Because while those matters involved errors in judgment, the Bernier/Guergis/Mulroney matters touched on seedy elements that some, at the time, alleged might involve criminal activity.
The Conservative base does not approve of seedy. No matter the guilt or innocence of those accused, the mere association with persons of ill repute is enough to tarnish their reputation.
. . . A threat to the party’s reputation in this area had to be neutralized — in this case (the story goes) by allegedly ordering Mr. Duffy to pay back money that the Senator originally was told he didn’t owe.

If the Harper Cons are actually so focused on how things look that they will do anything to avoid an appearance of dishonesty, then they are doomed.
Honesty is not based on a fear that someone is looking. Integrity is not something that can be achieved by purchase or persuasion. The Harper Cons cannot build an honourable government on a foundation of sand.