Once they were the best of buddies. Two Con peas in a pod united by fanatic ideology and religion.
But then Stephen Harper threw his faithful Chief of Staff under the bus. Along with so many others.
And now the question is, will Nigel Wright destroy Great Desperate Leader?
He denied there was a video. He denied that he smoked crack or hung out with criminals.
But it looks as if the police have finally caught up with Rob Ford.
There couldn't have been a better illustration of what Stephen Harper has done to our Parliament and our country.
A more disgusting example of how he corrupts everything he touches. Smears anyone who gets in his way. And is making a mockery out of our democracy.
Lordy, how ghastly. It looks as if Stephen Harper is going to have to carry Mike Duffy on his back all the way to Calvary...I mean Calgary.
Because although the Con convention starts on Thursday, Duffy's execution, along with that of the other two Senators, can't be arranged until at least Friday.
Procedural wrangling in the Senate means a vote on whether three senators should be barred and lose their pay, won't happen until at least Friday.
After the Liberals raised procedural and humanitarian objections, and the official executioner hacked off his own foot.
It couldn't have been a more pathetic sight. An angry Stephen Harper lashing out at everybody but himself.
Looking absolutely desperate, and sounding like a robot.
Well as you can probably guess, I'm really enjoying Stephen Harper's Halloween Horror show eh?
It's not often that you get to see somebody scaring the shit straw out of Great Ugly Leader, rather than the other way around.
But beyond what Mike Duffy had to say yesterday, beyond the cheques and the payola, what really horrifies me, and always has, is how casually and how blatantly Stephen Harper lies.
Well as you know I've long predicted that Mike Duffy would be Stephen Harper's nemesis.That he knew enough to expose the conniving thugs in the PMO and their shameless scams.
And today he appears to have done just that.
Well we know he believes the truth is what he says it is. Even when it isn't. We know he can tell one Big Lie after the other with a crooked smile on his face.
But this a whopper.
Stephen Harper is changing the story on how his chief aide left the Prime Minister’s office after it was revealed Nigel Wright personally bailed out beleaguered Senator Mike Duffy.
Mr. Harper revealed Monday morning in a Halifax radio interview that Mr. Wright was fired from his job as chief of staff in the PMO.
"I think the responsibility whenever things go wrong is for us to take appropriate action,” Mr. Harper told News 95.7 Halifax.
“As you know I had a chief of staff who made an inappropriate payment to Mr. Duffy. He was dismissed.”
Because that's NOT what he told us just four months ago.
In May, Mr. Harper said the repayment was Mr. Wright's "personal decision, and he did this in capacity as chief of staff, so he is solely responsible, and that is why he’s resigned."
Mr. Harper added that he would not have approved of the bailout had he known about it.
“Had I obviously been consulted … I would not have agreed, and it is obviously for those reasons that I accepted Mr. Wright’s resignation.”
And so soon after he admitted that Nigel Wright wasn't the only one in the PMO to know about the cash for silence deal. Once there were none, and then the message shifted.
On June 5, Harper said definitively that no one else in his office was told what Wright was up to.
"As I have said repeatedly, it was Mr. Wright who made the decision to take his personal funds and give those to Mr. Duffy so that Mr. Duffy could reimburse the taxpayers," Harper said.
"Those were his decisions. They were not communicated to me or to members of my office."
When the Commons returned to question period on Oct. 17, with RCMP documents now in the public domain, the message shifted, subtly but significantly. The phrase "sole responsibility" was applied to Wright, rather than suggesting he acted alone.
And suddenly there were a FEW.
Because as Michael Harris points out in the court of the mad King, you're innocent until your proven embarrassing
First Nigel Wright enjoys his “full confidence” and won’t be resigning. Then he resigns in disfavour.
Once Nigel Wright was just a good samaritan helping out a friend. Now he’s a guy who showed bad judgment, stiffed the boss, and deserved the boot.
Initially, no one in the PMO knew of Wright’s strategic philanthropy. Now, the shorter list is of those who didn’t know.
And the double standard RULES.
All the while Dean del Mastro was under investigation by Elections Canada, the PM clutched him to his bosom as his parliamentary secretary. Presumption of innocence, you see. Del Mastro, the parliamentary equivalent of a Rottweiler, only got the flick from caucus after being charged with expense-cheating in a federal election. But PM Harper has not asked him to resign the way he asked Brent Rathgeber after he broke ranks.
And as for those who believe that it's more important to clean-up the Senate pig pen, than determine what Harper knew or didn't, maybe they also need a lesson in ETHICS.
The “Nigel Did It” narrative is horse balls under a parliamentary democracy founded on ministerial responsibility. As for the morality play some Harper puppets want to make of this, the wise words of Oscar Wilde apply: “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”
And this sinner has a past that reeks of HYPOCRISY...
Which at the end of the day leaves me wondering whether Great Ugly Leader is a compulsive liar.
Whether he is mentally and morally fit to remain in office.
Or whether because none of his flunkeys ever dares challenge him.
Or dares tell him he has no clothes...
He can walk around with his ass lies hanging out, and think he can get away with ANYTHING.
And I think the answer is obvious eh?
I doesn't really matter why he is doing it. The mad king cannot be trusted as far as we can spit.
He has disgraced himself and his office beyond recognition.
And he must be DISMISSED...
Click here to recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers.
Only his fluffers in the PMO know the Cowboy Emperor's state of mind tonight. Those who dare to approach him.
But he must be a scary sight. His elaborate plans to reboot his corrupt old government, and soften his image, are lying like the ruins of Rome... or Pompeii... around him.
The Con regime is in chaos, he's never looked more vindictive or more desperate, or just plain KRAZY.
And now his latest plan to make himself look good, by executing three Senators without due process, and delivering their shrunken heads to the Con Convention, is being threatened by an outbreak of LENIENCY !!!!
There aren't too many artists who can bridge the generational divide, or the straight/gay divide, but one of them was Lou Reed.
Lou Reed, the singer-songwriter whose darkly poetic recordings as frontman for the Velvet Underground and as a solo artist provided indispensable blueprints for punk, glam, noise rock and nearly every identifiable strain of indie rock, died on October 27. He was 71.
Equally influenced by Chuck Berry and Arthur Rimbaud, Reed’s spiky, provocative lyrics tackled the experiences of drug addicts, transvestites, street hustlers and depressives with a directness and empathy heretofore unheard in American popular music.
Well he made it to the end of the week. On all fours. And at least we now know how he hopes to try escape the Senate scandal.
By portraying the three Con Senators he appointed as the real villains, and himself as the victim of their corruption, and the only man who can clean things up.
Gambling that reason can be replaced by the howl of the angry mob.
And already some in the MSM believe that might be enough to allow him to waltz away from the problem.
Well he wasn't in Question Period today, to answer questions about the porky Senate scandal.
Or tell us why he now admits that a "few" people knew about the Duffy Deal. Or who they are. Or why he claimed for so long that only Nigel Wright knew.
He won't hold a news conference to take questions from reporters.
But he will go on Tory radio to defend his decision to suspend three Senators without due process.
It's almost impossible to imagine a more depraved and disgusting spectacle, than the sight of Stephen Harper preparing to meet his rabid base, and posing as Mr Clean.
By trying to expel from the Red Chamber without due process, three Con Senators he himself appointed. And asking us to believe his version of what happened.
Even though, as Lawrence Martin points out, Stephen Harper's truth is his alone, and his appalling pattern of behaviour speaks volumes.
Whatever progressive party you support you have to enjoy the sight of Tom Mulcair going after Stephen Harper in the House of Commons.
Because he has been relentless. Grilling Stephen Harper like a criminal. Pouncing on every word of his now changing story.
Stephen Harper insisted “very few” people in Conservative circles knew that chief aide Nigel Wright was personally bailing out Senator Mike Duffy when the PEI politician faced public pressure to reimburse taxpayers for questionable expense claims.
Media reports suggest as many as 13 Tory insiders knew of the financial assistance to Mr. Duffy – a number that raises questions about how so many people could be inside the loop without Mr. Harper being aware of what is happening.
Hanging him with his own words.
Mr. Mulcair, who led the charge against Mr. Harper in the Commons Thursday, pointed out Mr. Harper’s story has changed when it comes to how many Conservatives knew of the Wright gift.
The NDP chief pointed out that on June 5 Mr. Harper told the Commons nobody in the PMO had known of Mr. Wright’s largesse.
Pounding him again and again, leaving him looking like this...
Like a wounded, increasingly desperate leader of a corrupt government who is making it up as he goes along.
But of course he does have a plan. With the Con convention now only a week away he is just trying to appeal to his brutish base, by offering them the heads of the three disgraced senators on a platter, with apples in their mouths.
While trying to make himself look virtuous, instead of the morally debased political thug who allowed his office to be turned into a nest of plotting, scheming, definitely unethical, and possibly criminal activities.
And who is now after corrupting the Senate, abusing due process, for crass political reasons. And debasing our democracy in the process, as he has done again, and again, ever since he came to office.
And it may work to convince his rabid base, for they are easily convinced. They don't call them rabid for nothing eh?
But I doubt he will change the minds of many other Canadians.
He can purge his problems in the Senate, as casually as he purges himself...
But he will not escape the taint of scandal.
Every new revelation or allegation in the sordid saga of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s fraught dealings with senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau seems to heap more discredit on Harper, his office, the Conservative party and its leaders in the tainted Red Chamber. If the Tories were hoping that a speedy Senate purge would make this go away, they must be sadly disappointed.
He will not muzzle or bury this one. It's just too big to ignore, and too disgusting to be swept under the carpet.
Many Canadians may not understand the complete extent of the scandal, but they can smell the stench, and they know HIM.
The unflattering portrait that emerges is of a Prime Minister who stacked the Senate with cronies who mistook the taxpayer’s dollar for their own. Who in Duffy’s case sought to cover up a scandal. Who was left out of the loop as Wright told others in the Prime Minister’s Office of his bid to fix the problem. Who wrongly told Parliament that Wright acted on his own. And who ultimately cut Duffy adrift with scant regard for the niceties of due process.
This is about scandal, cronyism, coverup, evasion, bullying and ruthless expediency. Multiple Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigations into fraud on government and breach of trust. A doctored Senate committee report. Stonewalling of auditors. And a Senate in chaos, thoroughly discredited.
And more and more of them must surely be disgusted, and understand all that they need to understand.
This country will not be clean or Canada again, until Stephen Harper and his depraved band of political thugs are purged from power, and flushed into the sewer of history.
Oh boy. How lucky I am, how lucky we all are, to be able to fight for our big and beautiful country in its hour of need.
Because it cries out to us, along with the voices of every decent Canadian who ever lived.
Deliver me from this living nightmare.
Save me from this monstrous leader...
As for Tom Mulcair, he may not being doing as well in the polls as him and his supporters would like.
A fate he may or may not deserve.
But for the way he is treating Stephen Harper these days. Pounding him in our name.
We all owe him a debt of gratitude...
Click here to recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers.
Golly. If I wasn't enjoying Stephen Harper's pain so much I'd probably feel sorry for him eh?
Because that sordid Senate scandal just keeps coming at him from all directions like a bat out of Hell.
Yesterday it was Mike Duffy, bellowing like a wounded moose, and goring his reputation further.
Today Pamela Wallin flew into the Red Chamber and she was REALLY pissed.
Well after refusing to answer questions about the Senate scandal yesterday, Stephen Harper strapped on his Darth Vader helmet today, and went after his Death Star Mike Duffy.
Stephen Harper went on the offensive in the Senate expense claims scandal Wednesday, trying to diminish the impact of Mike Duffy’s allegations that the Prime Minister’s Office threatened him with expulsion from the Red Chamber if he didn’t repay huge expense claims.
Trying to make it sound like it was all about the expenses Duffy racked up while working at his two jobs: Canadian Senator and Con bagman. And how Duffy wasn't the real victim, HE was.
I've been fighting bullies since I was 12-years-old, so I know them when I see them.
And I also know that when you confront them and fight back, they usually turn into cowards and cut and run. Like Stephen Harper did today in Question Period, when he refused to answer most of the questions about the Senate scandal.
So what Mike Duffy had to say today about Harper and his PMO thugs, has for me the ring of truth.
OMG. Can you believe how this sordid Senate scandal has become a real horror movie? And Stephen Harper's worst nightmare.
First the old werewolf went after Old Duff, then Old Puff went after HIM !!!!
Now it's open warfare.
OMG. Throw in the towel. Somebody call a waahmbulance !!!! You won't believe what happened to Stephen Harper in Question Period !!!!
He waddled into the ring with his head held high hoping to brag about his E.U. trade deal, only to get hit with an upper cut to the chin by the NDP's Megan Leslie !!!
And a kick in the nuts courtesy of Mike Duffy.
There are many things to worry about what Stephen Harper might do to Canada, especially now that he is desperate.
From forcing through his pipelines at gunpoint, to threatening the future of our medicare system.
But what I fear the most is that he might, for cheap political reasons, harness anti-Quebec sentiment in this country, and leave Canada shattered and broken.
And this is definitely a step in that direction.
It's one of the scariest places in Canada eh? The dark heart of the Con conspiracy. The home of the Big Lie.
And now Paul Wells has given us a glimpse of the horror that lies within. And of the weird leader in his inner sanctum.
And although I'm sure that Wells didn't intend it that way, the picture that emerges is truly frightening.
Uh oh. What bad timing. Just the other day he was blowing his horn and telling his Con caucus that we must "seize the moment" and go "further and faster."
Telling us all that we must move even MORE oily goodness by rail. Because Canada Alberta needs the money eh?
But now he's playing a tiny violin, reaching for a fire extinguisher, and watching Alberta burn.
It's the human rights nightmare that just goes on and on. The case of Omar Khadr, and the travesty of justice that should shame us all.
And today the latest chapter in this Harperland horror story.
Well as you know Stephen Harper deposited his Throne Speech yesterday with much fanfare and farting, and then ran off to Belgium. So he wouldn't have to answer any questions.
Which was just as well eh?
Because the reviews came in today, and they were really STINKY.
It was a Throne Speech as small, as uninspiring, and as politically depraved as Stephen Harper himself.
A speech that must have made the poor Governor General feel like running home and taking a shower.
A grubby little speech with a toxic teabagger heart.
Golly. As I wait to watch Stephen Harper lead his almost new/nouveau cabinet into Parliament after a four month holiday, so they can start memorizing his Throne Speech, I can't help thinking of that old H.L. Mencken quote:
"Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage."
Because we may not have a functioning democracy in this country. But we got a circus, we got monkeys, we got Con klowns AND a Mr Dickhead... Pierre Poilievre !!!!
Oh no. Not ANOTHER sordid Con scandal. How many more can we endure, how much longer can Stephen Harper keep debasing himself, shaming us in the eyes of the world?
And how dare he make the TAXPAYERS pay for HIS political debauchery !!!
It still takes my breath away. This country so big and so beautiful.
And on this Thanksgiving Day, even in Harperland, I have so many reasons to be thankful.
A roof over my head and enough food to eat. A great companion, a loving family, friends who keep me grounded and make me laugh. Readers who encourage and support me so much.
The simple pleasures of life in Canada...
Uh oh. I see the Con regime is now so desperate to try to distract Canadians from the sordid Senate scandal, they're cooking up a whole new scam.
They're dressing up as consumer advocates, and sending out James Moore to flog their new/nouveau porky plan like a used car salesman.
You might think that Kellie Leitch would be better than most Cons. Better than her ghastly leader.
She's a pediatric surgeon who still works on a volunteer basis at an Ottawa hospital.
She's smart, she has an impressive resume, and she's a woman in a government of good ol' boys.
So I have to admit that even I dared hope she might be different eh?
But not any longer. Because this is outrageous.
OMG. This is so exciting. Somebody beat a drum, or a gong. After four long months of preparations, Stephen Harper's Con klown regime is finally shuffling back to Parliament.
The almost new/nouveau cabinet has been groomed, manicured, given a full body shampoo, an extensive criminal record check, and taught how to repeat their PMO lines without wincing or gasping. Or looking like obvious LIARS.
While Great Desperate Leader is hoping Canadians have forgotten about Mike Duffy, and the sordid Senate scandal. So he can put his anus annus horribilis behind him.
And jump on the reset button
Normally the sight of the moon rising over Mount Royal on a beautiful cloudless night would make me whoop with joy at the thought that I had finally escaped from Harperland.
If only for a few precious moments.
Or smile at the sight of the Muslim crescent and the Christian cross sharing the mountain, after the way the hideously flawed PQ Charter of Values has divided the province.
But somehow last night I found myself shivering in the cool night air, staring up at the inky darkness, and wondering again where Stephen Harper is taking this country.
Because this rings hollow.
It's been pretty grey and wet where I live. It gets dark before you know it. Soon it will be winter in Harperland. In all its grim horror.
But on the positive side I have a few days off, so I can take a short break from blogging, recharge my batteries, and try to figure out where the hell we're going eh?
Because on the gloomiest days I can't help feeling that progressives might be drifting towards disaster.
I realize that for many Canadians Latin America begins and ends in Cancun, Cuba, or the Dominican Republic.
And that they know as much about the rest of the continent, as they know about Quebec.
But if Stephen Harper thinks he can shrug off the allegations about spying on the Brazilians, he doesn't know the New Brazil, in the New Latin America, and he doesn't know Dilma Rousseff.
We know he wants total control. We know that he believes that the end justifies the means.
We know that Canadian mining companies are some of the most ruthless and rapacious companies on earth.
But did Stephen Harper really authorize the spooks at CSEC to spy on the Brazilians?
It's a deeply disturbing story. A Toronto Star reporter goes undercover in a Toronto church and discovers a weird group of religious fanatics trying to "heal" gay people.
Telling them there is no such thing as a gay person. God didn't make any.Telling them it's their fault or their parent's fault. Encouraging this kind of nonsense.
During a lesson titled “The Father Wound,” a participant said his father was absent when his mother was pregnant. After considering the teachings, he realized his dad’s absence may be the root of his gay desires — he longed for male affection even inside the womb. Our leaders encouraged this as truth and thanked God for giving him this insight.
Well I see that Stephen Harper hasn't dared reply to Tom Steyer's letter demanding to know whether he has been working with the Tea Party extremists to blackmail the U.S. government.
We have a saying in the United States that I believe may also resonate in Canada: When you go to bed at night with no snow on the ground, and you wake up in the morning to find snow, you can safely conclude it snowed.
And I must say I'm not surprised eh? Not just because he'd rather not admit that his Harperite oil pimps HAVE been lobbying the Tea Party extremists like a gang of Nigerian spammers.
But also because him and his Con gang are teabaggers themselves. Their stealthy ideological twins.
Uh oh. I knew Stephen Harper's all out offensive to try to force Obama to approve the Keystone pipeline was going to end badly eh?
First he made a fool of himself by declaring that he wouldn't take no for an answer.
Now Tom Steyer wants to know if he's been collaborating with the Republican teabaggers who are trying to shutdown the U.S. government.
He's been trying to soften his image by posing as a friend of poor women and children. He told a U.N. group on maternal health that "action trumps rhetoric.".
His stooge John Baird denounced forced marriage, and warned of the health dangers for young women who get pregnant.
Statistics provided by Baird's office show girls under 15 years old are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s, and children born to mothers under 18 years old are 60 per cent more likely to die in their first year of life. Childbirth is the leading cause of death for girls 15 to 18 years old.
But today his foul Con regime made it clear that providing those young women and girls with safe abortions is out of the question. Even if they've been RAPED.
Oh no. Not more humiliation. Can you believe it? Stephen Harper's Great Escape Tour is on its way to Kuala Lumpur.
And I'm still waiting to hear from the CTV reporter who dared asked Harper a question. And who is no doubt now travelling in the baggage compartment.
But already I can see that the Con Klown Tour has run into a major obstacle: the President of China.
OMG. You'd think she would do better. You'd think she would live up to the honour of being the first Inuk appointed to a federal cabinet.
You'd think she would do all she could to help and protect the people who live in the arctic from the devastating effects of climate change. Her people.
But no, Leona Aglukkaq is no Minister of the Environment. She's just another shabby Con climate change denier.
A funny thing happened on the Road to Kuala Lumpur. Stephen Harper threw a hissy fit, and further exposed his tyrannical tendencies.
The new gang of young fanatics in the PMO showed themselves to be Con klowns who will do ANYTHING to pleasure their depraved leader.
And Dave Ellis, the journalist, will be allowed on the Prime Minister's plane. After being banned for daring to ask a question.
Well they may have padlocked Parliament, but I see the new/nouveau Con cabinet still managed to hold a top-secret meeting.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his top Cabinet ministers hunkered down in their ultra-secure meeting room off the Prime Minister’s Centre Block office all day Tuesday, with the new session of Parliament still two weeks away and opposition parties furious over their inability to grill the government over the effect a U.S. shutdown of government services involving 800,000 U.S. public servants could have on Canada.
And I can only imagine how desperate it must have been eh?
What with the Cons still dodging questions about the Senate scandal, even as that scandal just keeps on getting BIGGER.
She's one of Stephen Harper's closest and longest associates, and one of the few people on Parliament Hill who can walk into his office ANYTIME she wants.
And now Senator Carolyn Stewart-Olsen is promising to pay back wrongly claimed expenses?
