Well I see Great RoboCon Leader is accusing the opposition of conducting a smear campaign.
Stephen Harper is now categorically denying the Conservative Party machine was behind misleading robo-calls that confused voters in Guelph and elsewhere, calling the entire matter a “smear campaign” by the NDP and Liberals.
Because when it comes to smear campaigns he should know eh?
But I on the other hand think this blatant attempt to steal an election is a smear against our democracy.
And sooner or later the Governor General must intervene.
Mama Mia. I see Dean Del Mastro wants to grill the creator of Vikileaks before a Commons committee.
"This is just the latest in a long history of shady Liberal practices that harm our democracy," Del Maestro said. "These nasty, dirty Internet tricks were deeply personal and fall short of the standard of behaviour that Canadians have come to expect," he said.
Gawd. I guess all that talk about Pierre Poutine must have made him hungry eh?
But is this a wise move for the shady Cons? Or just another attempt to harm our democracy, by conducting this kangaroopiggy porco hearing before the wrong committee?
And can't they see what might happen? Since Adam Carroll did nothing illegal, just published what was in the public domain. Won't he be forced to defend himself by reading the details of the whole messy divorce into the Parliamentary record?
You know it takes a certain kind of mentality to pay cash for a disposable cellphone, like criminals do, and call the phony owner Pierre Poutine.
A telephone number used to place automated calls directing voters to the wrong polling station in Guelph, Ont., in the last federal election was registered to a "Pierre Poutine" of Separatist Street, Joliette, Que., court documents reveal.
The same kind of mentality shown by these Young Republicans picketing a Democratic convention during the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic...
Because it takes a Con to stoop so low. And still think they're funny.
Uh oh. Con Zombie Alert. I see Vic Toews is going after Justin Trudeau.
An angry Vic Toews wants an investigation into whether Justin Trudeau encouraged personal Twitter attacks against him after it was revealed a Liberal staffer was the mastermind of the Vikileaks Twitter controversy that aired details of Public Safety Minister’s divorce in retaliation for an online surveillance bill.
And on Twitter !!!!!
Oh My Godzilla. A tweeting zombie? Justin, Justin run for your life !!!!!
I was disappointed to see Bob Rae apologize to Vic Toews today for the Vikileaks campaign.
Not because of the apology itself, which was the decent act of a decent progressive. But because he didn't ask Toews to also apologize unequivocally for calling opponents of the fascist bill C-30 supporters of child pornographers.
Which was far worse than anything that Liberal staffer did. Especially since Toews still hasn't apologized for that filthy slur, continues to defend the bill and rewrite history.
But what really annoyed me was that so many in our idiot media spent so much time today comparing the Vikileaks episode to the RoboCon scandal.
As the RoboCon scandal grows bigger and bigger. And our country begins to look more and more like a fascist state run by criminals. Even BEFORE they start reading our e-mails.
I thought I'd try to look on the bright side eh?
And that is, in no particular order:
(1) Great Ugly Leader is not going to get away with this one.
Now we know that it wasn't just robocalls, and that at least one call centre was involved.
An analysis of reports of mysterious harassing phone calls during the May 2011 election points to the existence of a systematic voter suppression campaign targeting Liberal voters in tightly contested ridings.
Unlike the pre-recorded "robocalls" now under investigation by Elections Canada, these calls came from live callers, likely working from a call centre.
Now we know that it was a vast conspiracy to suppress the vote, Stephen Harper's minions are out in force trying to deflect attention away from their Great Ugly Leader.
But it won't work, because everybody knows that those kind of tactics are a logical consequence of Harper's take-no-prisoners approach to politics.
They stole the last election and are turning our country into a place most of us don't recognize.
They are trying to blame a young Con campaign worker for the robocalls, even though as I pointed out in my last post. And Joan Bryden points out here.
Opposition MPs noted that whomever organized the calls had to have access to lists that identified each voter’s party preference — something typically only available to local and national party campaign headquarters.
Golly Sherlock, I see the bizarre case of the Cons and the Demon-Dialers has taken another strange turn. It seems that the Harper mob is trying to shop one if its own.
A young campaign worker named Michael Sona, seen here posing with Great Robot Leader...
In a photo supplied to Con Sun Media by the goons at the PMO.
Don't they make a lovely couple?
Although I'm not sure Sona makes a good scapegoat. Because while he may be rabidly partisan.
Several University of Guelph students claim Michael Sona, the communications director for Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke, attempted to put a stop to voting at the special ballot held Wednesday. The students say Sona approached the Elections Canada balloting site claiming that the process unfolding at the location was illegal and at one point reached for but never took possession of a container with ballots.
When I first heard that Elections Canada is investigating attempts to suppress the vote during the last election, I wrote that at the very least bye-elections should be held in the 18 swing ridings that were targeted by robot calls.
But now I believe that it must declare the last election null and void, because this is too big to ignore.
The published report said Elections Canada was probing complaints received in Guelph, one of 18 ridings where voters were targeted by harassing or deceptive phone messages in an apparent effort to discourage Liberal supporters from voting. The NDP upped that number Thursday, saying they were aware of eight other NDP-held swing ridings, and at least one BQ-held riding where voters reported crank “robocalls,” for a total of 27 ridings where deception may have been at play.
This isn't just a scattered attempt to suppress the vote. This is a vast conspiracy to steal an election.
Extra. Extra. Pick up a copy of Con Stories, with the latest Con scandal.
Elections Canada has traced fraudulent phone calls made during the federal election to an Edmonton voice-broadcast company that worked for the Conservative Party across the country.
Elections Canada launched its investigation after it was inundated with complaints about election day calls in Guelph, Ont., one of 18 ridings across the country where voters were targeted by harassing or deceptive phone messages in an apparent effort to discourage Liberal supporters from voting.
Oh boy. Sometimes it's not easy to be a blogger in the growing darkness of Stephen Harper's Canada. You can feel the fear in the air.
My computer is humming like a toaster, and I don't know whether it's the sinister operatives from the PMO, or the Russian hackers. Or both gangs working together.
My terrified friends say that if they have to choose between torture and jail, or denouncing me as an Enemy of the State, I better get TWO toothbrushes, and a big box of condoms, because I'm going down for a long time.
One of the most outrageous aspects of Bill C-30 is that not only would it strip us of our civil liberties, it would also require us to pay for that privilege.
Forcing service providers to install monitoring equipment on their networks and adding additional reporting requirements will only serve to drive up the cost of service — and Canadians already pay some of the highest prices for Internet access in the G20. It could also force smaller providers that cannot afford the additional expense to close shop.
And once that equipment is installed police will be able to routinely ask internet providers to provide them with your internet protocol address, and your name, without a warrant.
This means that the police could conceivably collect a pseudonym you've been using to comment on websites, present it to the relevant company, and say, “Who is this person?”
By trading pseudonyms for IP addresses, then IP addresses for real names and addresses, and repeating the process, police could get a pretty clear picture of what you've been up to online.
Which is bad enough eh?
But what makes it even worse is that once that equipment is installed all kinds of other people could also press the big red button.
About a week ago I wrote a post in which I casually mentioned that Vic Toews was born in Filadelfia, a Mennonite colony in the Paraguayan jungle.
I got the information from Wikipedia. So imagine my surprise when I went back today and found that the information had vanished.
(click pic to enlarge)
Or had been edited out four days later. So now he wasn't born ANYWHERE. Caramba. Which made me really curious eh? Why would someone edit that out and leave in all the really horrible stuff ?
Canadians expect better. I call on Mr. Toews to step down as Minister of Public Safety.
The buck stops with the Prime Minister. He must hold his cabinet members to account.
Toews must pay the price for introducing such a foul bill, smearing his opponents as supporters of child pornography, only to admit he didn't even understand what was in the legislation. It's called ministerial responsibility.
But here's my problem eh? By focusing entirely on Toews we are allowing the hidden hand, the shadowy operatives in the PMO, and their dark leader Stephen Harper, to get away with murder.
Well I see that Vic Toews has abandoned his scary role in Vic Toews and the Zombie Internet Eaters, for an even scarier role as Captain Queeg.
Dear Constituents,
Over the last few weeks I have been subjected to an extensive personal attack by my political opponents as a result of certain legislation that I have introduced in the House of Commons on behalf of the federal government.
Where he plays the victim, and in typical form, wants all his opponents arrested.
I have to admit that I didn't think the low-budget Con horror/porn movie Vic Toews and the Zombie Internet Eaters could sink further into the abyss of fascist depravity.
But there was Toews today, foaming into his sheriff mustache, claiming he didn't care whether people knew that he has been a VERY bad Christian religious fanatic, or a horny old goat.
While demanding that the rebel Canadian behind the Vikileaks site be mercilessly probed.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is calling for an investigation into the source of a Twitter account that is being used to release details of his divorce.
Lordy. I wasn't going to write anything about the latest episode of the B-movie, Vic Toews and the Con Zombie Internet Eaters. Because it's sooooooo sordid. And we don't peddle Con smut on this blog eh?
An anonymous privacy advocate rose up against proposed internet surveillance legislation by publishing on Twitter tawdry snippets of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ 2010 divorce proceedings.
And all I can say is Viki .... Viki....I hardly knew you.
Oh fuddle duddle, or merde as we say in Quebec. I see Justin Trudeau is in trouble again.
“I always say, if at a certain point, I believe that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper – that we were going against abortion, and we were going against gay marriage and we were going backwards in 10,000 different ways – maybe I would think about wanting to make Quebec a country.
And this time he's being called everything from a traitor.
“If had read the quote and not known who said it, I would have attributed it to an adolescent,” said Tom Darby, a political philosopher at Carleton University. “It does not matter what party or even what policies one favours, the quote is factually untrue, irresponsible, and even treasonous.
To a narcissist, and even *gasp* a young Canadian.
Uh oh. Call the Ministry of Truth. It seems that the Con Zombie Vic Toews is trying to rewrite history.
After failing to parse himself properly...
My diagnosis? If he's forgetting himself it's senile dementia.
If he's lying it's Big Brother syndrome:
"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that even, it never happened-that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death."
"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed-if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"
George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3
And one way or the other, in the interest of public safety.
You should have seen him during Question Period today, staring down the helpless opposition with his cold dead eyes, like a hawk staring at a mouse, before it rips it apart.
After tabling his montrous internet snooping bill that would turn Canada into a police state.
Gawd. Trust the old Con zombie Vic Toews to come stumbling out of his crypt, and make a complete fascist fool out of himself. Again.
Critics of a bill that would give law enforcement new powers to access Canadians' electronic communications are aligning themselves with child pornographers, Canada's public safety minister says.
"He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers," Vic Toews said of Liberal public safety critic Francis Scarpaleggia during question period on Monday, after Scarpaleggia asked about a bill expected to be tabled Tuesday.
Only three months after claiming that anyone who opposed his totalitarian internet snooping bill, was a child pornographer AND a mobster.
And only three days after suggesting that anyone who disagreed with the Cons was not just an Enemy of the State, but also a potential terrorist.
His name was Mitchell Wilson. He suffered from muscular dystrophy. But that didn't save him from being savagely bullied. When he learned he would have to testify in court against his alleged attacker, it was too much for the gentle boy, and he killed himself.
But now his words will speak from beyond the grave.
A judge has ruled that written statements will be allowed as evidence against a boy charged with bullying and robbing Mitchell Wilson, an 11-year-old Pickering, Ont., boy who took his own life.
The Crown alleges that Wilson, who suffered from muscular dystrophy and used a walker, was bullied and attacked in November 2010. He was walking in his neighbourhood and allegedly attacked and robbed of his father's iPhone. Wilson suffered broken teeth in the attack.
As I rushed to catch the ferry this afternoon, it still looked like the Canada I love. The fresh dusting of snow. The ducks sheltering from the cold west wind.
But as it does so often in Stephen Harper's Canada, where I once saw light, now I see darkness.
For the sight of all those ducks lined up facing the same way, paddling furiously to stay in the same spot, while squawking loudly, reminded of the sorry state of the progressive movement in this country.
Going nowhere. Lamenting loudly. Doing nothing. As a cold fascist wind blows, and the Cons turn us into a police state. For surely this is the final warning.
Oh.My.Gnome. I see that little Jimbo Flaherty has been totally HUMILIATED. Again. Just the other day he was telling Canadians don't worry about your pensions if you're over fifty-seven.
But then the sinister operatives in the PMO heard what he said. And they were not pleased.
A few weeks ago I brought you the short movie Wild Life, the sad story of an Englishman who wanted to be a cowboy in Alberta, courtesy of the National Film Board.
Since then I've learned that the movie, by Calgary filmmakers Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby, has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short.
Along with another in the same category, Dimanche / Sunday by Patrick Doyon.
It tells the story of a family in a Quebec town where the only factory has closed.
Well even by Jimbo Flaherty's ghastly standards it was a bizarre and ugly sight. There he was late this afternoon, looking like he wanted to hide under a chair, or in his case a small stool.
Sweating profusely, talking in a hoarse whisper, and promising you don't have to worry about your pension or your Old Age Security if you're older than fifty-seven.
"This is not for tomorrow morning," Flaherty said in Oshawa, Ont., at an event with Conservative MP Colin Carrie.
"This is for 2020, 2025, so that people who are middle-aged and younger today, like Colin and not me, can be assured that they will have the social programs, properly funded, fiscally responsible. They will be here for them in the future."
While at other times turning red in the face and looking like he wanted to strangle Kevin Page, the heroic Parliamentary Budget Officer, for making him look like an idiot.
Lordy. Fan me with a feather. It look as if Rob Ford has really done it this time. Not only has he been totally humiliated.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has called his council's tumultuous debate on the future of the city's transit "irrelevant" after it dealt him a major defeat on Wednesday, voting down his vision to put new light-rail lines underground.
Not only has he gone from a zero, to Nero, or Marie Antoinette, in the time it takes to lose twenty pounds.
He has apparently cracked under the strain. Going on a bizarre late night tour of the subway system, immediately following his council loss.
Which scared the bejeesus out of people all over the city...
Only to forget to pick up a transfer, because he always drives to work. And have to take a cab all the way back to his home in the suburbs.
All of which has some calling the ignorant redneck a deranged buffoon. Others calling HIM irrelevant.
For Ford himself, Wednesday’s defeat was crushing. The day after being elected, he staked his mayoralty on subways, and now council has said no. The province won’t be far behind, which means Ford has alienated everyone but Hudak, who, like the mayor, lacks credibility.
Though he has three years left in his term, Ford is a lame-duck mayor. How long can he last?
In the last few days I've been urging Canadians to start showing their opposition to Stephen Harper and his Cons, by taking to the streets, like people in other western democracies do when confronting other right-wing regimes.
Instead of just sitting on their asses, and whining and wailing, or pounding their keyboards, or playing a tiny violin, as their country burns.
The other day Obama, in his favourite role as Commander in Chief of The Great War on Terror, claimed that his Darth Vader fleet of deadly drones was on a "tight leash."
Mr. Obama, in an unusually candid public discussion of the Central Intelligence Agency’s covert program, said the drone strikes had not inflicted huge civilian casualties. “We are very careful in terms of how it’s been applied,” he said. “It is important for everybody to understand that this thing is kept on a very tight leash.”
But now we find out that the drones may be on a tight leash, but the people who fly them while sitting in an air conditioned trailer near Las Vegas, are apparently out of control.
First they were allowed to get married, and then they were told they couldn't. One day they had human rights, the next day they were stolen. But today in California they won another big victory.
“All that Proposition 8 accomplished was to take away from same sex-couples the right to be granted marriage licenses and thus legally to use the designation ‘marriage,” the judge wrote, adding: “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gay men and lesbians in California."
I'm so proud of my brothers and sisters who refused to give up. And I'm so grateful to the plaintiffs who led the charge. Like this lesbian couple and their teenage sons.
"Today, the 9th Circuit [Court of Appeals] said to our family that we are equal under the law," she said, adding that now, "we can see over the dark wall of discrimination."
Like the decaying painting of Dorian Gray he stares out at us, with all his moral ugliness and sheer depravity revealed for all to see.
We already knew that he heads the most sinister and evil government in Canadian history. But just when you think his grotesque Cons can go no lower, they do. Turning torture into a virtue.
The federal government is defending itself after more information has come to light about its directions to Canada's spy agency to use information that may have been extracted through torture in cases where public safety is at stake.
Calling those who oppose the destruction of the life-saving gun registry Nazis.
When I see how the workers at Electro-Motive are suffering it breaks my heart.
From Lynda:
We have discussed the food bank. Worry that Paul will not be able to find another job that will pay our bills Now the worry that we will have no health coverage. The worry that we will have no future.
I'm sorry. I can't go on anymore with this. My head hurts and it is difficult to see right now. I'm going to try to lie down and sleep for a little while if I can.
From Tammy:
We are trying to fight with London Hydro so we don't lose our hydro in the next week. Our vehicle will more than likely be taken away in the weeks to come as well. How do you explain to your six-year-old that he can't have a cookie as there are only a few left and we need to save them for school lunches?
When I see how that shattered community is trying to fight back in a proud but humble way it makes me so sad.
And what will Canada be like when the Cons are gone forever?
Oh it will be BEAUTIFUL.
We'll change everything the Harperites ever did. We'll put them all in prison. We'll tell foreign interests to take a hike. We'll tax the rich until they scream.
So there will be enough money for pensions AND medicare.
The lamb will lie down with the lion.
And the kitten will lie down with the wolf...
But will poor little Simon survive? Since he only drives a bike.
Or paddles a teeny kayak.
Oh DEFINITELY.
As long as you promise him that progressives will eventually UNITE.
“Hitler wrote Mein Kampf more than a decade before he became Chancellor of Germany and they take these issues pretty seriously here. But it’s not just an Israeli question. The fear in the Arab world, in the entire region, the Gulf, and the entire Middle East is palpable on this issue. And it’s increasingly a significant security threat for the West: for Canada, the United States and our allies in Europe.”
Because although I loathe the fascist Iranian regime with every bone in my body, I much prefer to see it implode under the weight of sanctions, and the anger of its own people.
Rather than see us play into the hands of the monstrous Mullahs, and the hawks in Benjamin Netanyahu's settler regime, and trigger an all-out war in the Middle East.
I suppose I should thank James Moore, for putting some bimbo from Fox News North in her place. After she tried to claim that the CBC was a porn network.
According to Sun TV, CBC is producing "state broadcaster smut."
They sent a reporter to Parliament Hill this week with an iPad loaded with steamy clips from a program called Hard, a French drama about a woman who discovers after her husband's death that he has been secretly running a pornography business, which she must then run.
Heritage Minister James Moore, though, declined to take the bait.
"I know you're in the business of just going after the CBC, but I can't comment on something I haven't seen," he told a Sun TV reporter.
Then, off camera, he expressed skepticism about the issue, pointed out that Sun papers run bikini girls, and said the Sun TV reporter is being used as a "pawn" by Quebecor CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau, who wants CBC de-funded so he can get a larger share of the French language TV audience in Quebec, after which he will shut down Sun TV.
"You know that's going to happen right?" he said.
Even though he was forced to get down on all fours and crawl backwards like a lapdog, after being spanked by the PMO.
First they were told they must agree to have their wages cut in half, their benefits slashed, and their pensions gutted. Then when they refused to get down on their knees, they were locked out.
Tonight they're worrying about how they are going to feed their families after their plant was closed down.
Even though as one worker said "we made damn good trains." Even though the Caterpillar hogs were making record profits.
Caterpillar revealed Jan. 26 it had record-high sales and a profit of nearly $5 billion US last year, up 83 per cent from $2.7 billion US in 2010. Profit per share was $7.40 US, up 78 per cent.
Even though the Harper Cons gave them juicy tax breaks, and now have the gall to claim that they are doing that to create jobs.
Sometimes you have to focus on the big picture. Sometimes you have to see the forest for the trees. Or just smell the manure.
But here are the facts as I see them:
(1) Jason Kenney, a grotesque member of the sinister Harper gang commands civil servants to organize an immigrant show for his friends at Fox News North.
Documents released under Access to Information legislation show that just a few weeks before Canada's Citizenship Week last October, Kenney's staff directed departmental officials to add a last-minute citizenship ceremony at the network to their list of scheduled events.
A network that pimps for Big Oil, attacks programs designed to help bullied gay kids, never misses a chance to bash Muslims or immigrants.
And was set up for the sole purpose of destroying the CBC...
Politically, it may be the perfect time for an austerity budget. But news of a sudden contraction in the Canadian economy has economists suggesting that deep cuts now risk doing more harm than good.
And lead by example, by trimming his big mammoth pension, and stop billing taxpayers for the hopeless job of trying to make him look pretty.
