One question

I have one question about the new Ottawa RedBlacks: what are the team colours going to be?
Actually, I have two questions -- what the heck is a RedBlack anyway?
I prefer Buckdog's suggestion -- call the team Ottawa Scandals, a name that will never get old.

Today in tweets

I was going to make an NSA Twitter joke but they just called & told me they'd heard it already
— Thers (@Thers) June 7, 2013

#NSACalledToTellMe that I left my garage door open this morning but not to worry, they'll close it when they leave.
— Two Millimeters (@RebeccaAnn81) June 7, 2013

Wait, what?The government is spying on us?
— John Cole (@Johngcole) June 6, 2013

Isn't this delicious. Harper passes Bill 377 to allegedly have unions open the books and now we find out he has a secret slush fund. #Karma
— Sid Ryan (@SidRyan_OFL) June 6, 2013

.@canadiancynic the Harper Government could have saved money if they'd just signed up every MP with a complimentary Verizon phone. #NSA
— Saskboy K. (@saskboy) June 6, 2013

I guess the Harper Cons just cannot be trusted with money

What's the deal with the Harper Cons these days and their attitude toward Canadian law?  Not to mention how incompetent are they at handling money.
The two Con MPs are describing their refusal to submit legal election account statements to Elections Canada as an "accounting dispute" -- yeah, just like Mike Duffy's Senate expenses are just an "expenses dispute".

Candidate returns filed after an election typically contain a long, itemized list of payments made to suppliers for rent, advertising, salaries and other costs of running local campaigns.
But Glover’s return includes only nine payments, including two made to her riding association that represent the vast majority of her campaign spending. The entries, dated election day, say that Glover’s campaign paid $73,139 to the St. Boniface Conservative Association, with no indication of who ultimately received the money.
That line-item had entries of $34,777 under “other advertising” – possibly a calculation of the signage under dispute – $18,257 for “surveys,” $1,333 for rent, another $9,226 for other office expenses, and $9,545 described as “miscellaneous expenses.”
Bezan’s return shows a series of payments to 10 individuals, and $53,254 in payments to his riding association, including $17,253.31 labelled “other,” and $26,221.30 labelled “amounts not included in election expenses.”
The Elections Act requires every campaign to show where all the money it spends during a campaign goes, and auditors spend months working with campaigns from all parties across the country, trying to make sure their returns follow the rules.

Isn't this just typical of the Harper Cons -- in spite of their much-vaunted "private sector" street cred, they cannot be bothered to keep decent records of expenses, leading to the speculation they have cooked their books to be under the spending limits.  Then they bluster and whine and feel persecuted and run off to court when someone calls them on it.
What's the matter with these people?

Just shut up, that's why

Well, we certainly know now where RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson stands on bullying and harassment in the workplace

“I can’t be continuously defending against outlandish claims as if they were representative of a modern RCMP when they’re not.”

Ah, yes, Paulson testified to a Senate committee today to the effect that the REAL bullies are those disgruntled pro-union agitators who are being so mean to all those innocent RCMP managers and coworkers. Poor babies, they have it so tough when they are just "busting their hump" to serve the public.
Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell was not amused:

Mitchell later told reporters it was “revealing” to hear Paulson single individuals out for “ridicule and criticize them so aggressively in public,” saying it actually had the effect of underlining the message that “things are probably as bad” as some believe.
“I don’t think you can change culture in the RCMP if you don’t acknowledge” the issue and the courage of people who have brought it forward, Mitchell said.

I wonder if Paulson realizes that his testimony effectively endorsed behaviour which might well turn out to be indefensible?

Would you tune in to a TV show called Bayou Eskimos?

A PBS station in New York is running a series of subway posters to satirize all of the bizarre reality TV shows on the air lately.
Oh, well, at least Honey Boo Boo has had her 15 minutes, I hope.

The gift that keeps on giving

The Duff Scandal is getting more hilarious every day.
Now we find out that Duffy thought he should be appointed to Cabinet.
And what selfless contribution to the Canadian public did Duffy want to achieve as minister without portfolio?

"I suggested they make me a min without portfolio, so I get a staff, car and more resources to deal with the pr fallout etc."

Perks.  He just wanted the perks.  Once again, its all about him, rather than about any benefit to us working stiff who are paying his bills.
And then, the CBC tracks down Marjory LeBreton who gets all amazed that Duffy would have these expectations:

Marjory LeBreton, speaking to reporters in the Senate foyer, said, " It's ridiculous. The idea that the prime minister or anyone would pass over elected members of the House of Commons and name Mike Duffy as a minister? It's so ridiculous it's not even funny. It's totally bizarre. Who knows, who knows, but when I read it, when I read it — I don't know who the recipient of the email was — but when I read it I went, like, there isn't a chance of a snowball in hell of this ever happening, and I never spoke to him about it."

Of course, it was just three years before that the newly elected Harper appointed Montreal bagman Michael Fortier to the Senate and immediately made him public works minister.  But the objections to this appointment carried about the same weight with the Harper Cons as a snowball in hell.
You can't make this stuff up.

Desperate but not stupid

Using Montreal Simon's great phrase, Stephen Harper is "crazy desperate" about deflecting media attention from Duffy. He is flinging mud wildly against the Liberals (Tony Merchant's off-shore account) and the NDP (an attempted bribe from 17 years ago).
Is that all ya got?
Actually, if they want to remind us about a real Liberal scandal, the one that brought Harper to power, they could bring up the 2004 sponsorship scandal.
But no, come to think of it, they can't -- in that case, Prime Minister Paul Martin set up the Gomery Commission to investigate what had happened.
Not a precedent that Harper wants to remind anybody about, not at all...

Democracy under attack

This morning's Star Phoenix editorial Democracy under attack provides a stinging indictment of the gleeful Con response to last week's court ruling on the election phone call scandal:

No sooner had a federal court judge ruled that there had been widespread voter fraud in the last federal election involving a Conservative party database than a party spokesperson was bragging of victory.
It was a chilling response to a terrifying verdict. Justice Richard G. Mosley was unequivocal in his assessment, that misleading calls were made to electors in ridings across the country - including Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar - "and that the purpose of those calls was to suppress the votes of electors who had indicated their voting preference in response to earlier voter identification calls."
He was less sure, however, that it was enough to change the results. . . .
It was that uncertainty that had the Conservatives crowing victory. In a press release, the party insisted the judge concluded "there was no wrongdoing by the Conservative party or ... candidates."
Justice Mosley's ruling makes no such conclusion.

If we don't bother to care, then we will elect more buffoons for mayor

Winnipeg Free Press columnist Bartley Kives provides  a round up of Rob Ford's most embarrassing moments beginning with the Don Cherry debacle:

"Oh man, it was just embarrassing for the largest city in the country -- it just made me sad," Coun. Paula Fletcher, one of those apparent kooks, told the Toronto Star at the time.
Little did she know she just witnessed the high point of Rob Ford's time in the mayor's chair."

Yes, and we've all been laughing about Rob Ford ever since.
But Kives goes on to describe how easy it is to elect a buffoon in any city which doesn't take itself seriously:

In 2010, Ford was a well-known political commodity in Toronto: A lazy anti-intellectual of dubious personal character. Yet he still won the mayor's race by capturing the public's imagination with a simple, idiotic slogan: He was going to end "the gravy train" of wages and benefits flowing to city employees.
Simple sloganeering has elected many vile politicians, most notably back in the days when ordinary people did not have access to endless quantities of information, 24 hours a day, practically everywhere.
But with a minimal modicum of effort, any Toronto voter in 2010 could have learned who and what Rob Ford was, both as a person and as a politician. The fact a majority decided a political lightweight was still the best person to lead the nation's largest city is a testament to how little voters actually bother to care about anything anymore.
This is chilling, not hilarious. And the phenomenon is not restricted to the people of Toronto, who now deserve our sympathy and compassion, not ridicule....
Toronto's elected leader has unfortunately set the mayoral bar as low as it can go. Given the importance of the office, this should not make anyone happy, anywhere.

Hustle and Ford

The Globe and Mail has published the Ford family’s history with drug dealing.
Its like reading a movie script -- a beefier Kiefer Sutherland playing the suburban drug dealer with the dysfunctional family who uses his drug profits as the foundation for his more charismatic and electable younger brother's meteoric political career, thus becoming the power behind the throne but then watching helplessly as said brother destroys himself and all they achieved through his own addiction and hubris:

In the 1980s, anyone wanting to buy hashish had to know where to go. And in central Etobicoke, the wealthy Toronto suburb where Mayor Rob Ford grew up, one of those places was James Gardens. In the evening, the sports cars often wound along Edenbridge Drive, past the gated homes and the lawn-bowling pitches, until they reached the U-shaped parking lot. By nightfall, the public park was a hash drive-thru. One former street dealer, whom we will call “Justin,” described the scene as “an assembly line.”
There were usually a number of dealers to choose from, some of them supplied by a mainstay at James Gardens – a young man with the hulk-like frame and mop of bright blond hair: Doug Ford.

What did Harper know and when did he stop knowing it?

Coming awfully close now, isn't it?
Wright didn't just dash off a cheque to Duffy in a moment of sentimental weakness, to dry Duffy's tears on a sad February day.
Harper's chief of staff actually went through a negotiation with Harper's former legal counsel to give Harper's best media buddy a legal deal for $90K:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former special counsel and legal adviser worked on the legal deal between Nigel Wright and Sen. Mike Duffy’s lawyer that called for Wright to help Duffy pay off $90,000 in invalid expense claims, CTV News has learned.

But none of them told Harper anything about it.  Oh, sure.
Despite Perrin's carefully phrased denial, I just don't believe Harper's sanctimonious Sgt. Schultz 'I know nothing NOTHING' defense, and neither does anyone else.
Canadian Press reports on what happened today during Question Period:

"They think we're fools," said Francoise Boivin of the NDP. "They're trying to make us believe that (Harper) knew nothing."
Complained New Democrat Nathan Cullen: "These guys will not be accountable."
Charlie Angus, the New Democrat who has been worrying at the issue since it began, called it "abuse of the public trust."
The government "has lost its moral compass," boomed Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. "The prime minister is in this up to his neck."
Liberal colleague Ralph Goodale called it "an insidious scheme."
Through it all, Baird maintained an uncharacteristic calm, glancing periodically at his notes and insisting Harper only knew of the payment to Duffy when it became public last week.
The minister, who can be a vitriolic opponent, never raised his voice. "I can't be any more clear," he said repeatedly.

Oh, say...

This:


reminded me of this:

Tweet roundup

Some priceless tweets about Wright and Duffy and all that:

They're beautiful, those Chiefs of Staff, but lifespan wise it's like getting a great dane.
— Tabatha Southey (@TabathaSouthey) May 19, 2013

Fewer tears at the end, but the kids can't ride it like a pony, so emotionally on the Chief of Staff vs Great Dane choice, it's a draw.
— Tabatha Southey (@TabathaSouthey) May 19, 2013

@tabathasouthey We’ve had our Great Dane for nine years. Not as spry as she once was, but she hardly ever gives money to senators anymore.
— Daniel MacEachern (@DanMacEachern) May 19, 2013

You know, it makes me wonder...if Wright was so upright and honest and honourable and all that, like the tweets are saying, then why would it occur to him to give Duffy a personal cheque to make an audit go away? And if so, then who suggested it to him?

A Canadian Brownie

After reading Dawg's excellent piece about the man who was appointed by the Harper Cons as Librarian and Archivist of Canada, all I can say is, "Heck of a job, Danny!"

Leadership in borrowing

Was this the leadership that the Harper Cons were praising Mike Duffy for -- having a well-connected friend willing to give him $90,000?
With no strings attached, of course.
On that basis, I'm ready to show that kind of leadership myself! I can send Mr. Wright the address where he can mail my cheque.