Uh oh. Somebody call an ambulance, or his make-up artist, or the guy who fixes his hair helmet.
Because it seems the Supreme Court has just given Stephen Harper, our Dark Lord of the Flies, another massive slap in the face.
The Supreme Court has delivered a major blow to the Conservative government’s crime agenda, striking down a mandatory minimum sentence for illegal gun possession in a way that suggests other laws could also fall.
Ouch.
Or *KAPOW !#@!!! as Batty Harper's faithful Robin, Ray Novak, might say...
Because that one must REALLY hurt.
Not only is his demagogic crime agenda being shredded, and called cruel and unusual punishment and unconstitutional. Which is about as low as you can go without being hauled off to The Hague in handcuffs.
The decision was written by the Chief Justice he hates with a passion that borders on insanity, or perversion.
Adding salt to Ottawa’s wounds, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote the majority ruling. Prime Minister Stephen Harper clashed publicly with Chief Justice McLachlin last year after a series of major decisions went against his government.
For who can forget the monstrous way he reacted when his last batch of botched laws was rejected?
Or the sleazy way he got his shabby shuffling stooge Peter MacKay to claim that she'd tried to influence a decision by calling Harper, when she hadn't...
Who can forget how he tried to appoint an unqualified judge to the Supreme Court, just to embarrass the Chief Justice and degrade the court?
Or how he is planning to build a monstrous anti-communist monument to himself, on land reserved for a federal court...
To try to humiliate her further, because he does hate powerful women, and the kinky pleasure he gets from punishing people is out of control.
Since 2006, the Conservatives have created 60 mandatory minimum jail terms for guns, drugs, sex offences and other crimes, according to the justice department, helping to boost the number of federal prisoners to record heights even as crime rates dropped to 50-year lows.
Not just insane but EVIL.
And with our Parliament broken and bleeding, if it hadn't been for our wonderfully Canadian Supreme Court he would have turned this country into a police state or a brutish jungle a long time ago.
So I'd just like to say this to Beverley McLachlin...
He thought he could bully and intimidate you because you're a woman, but you showed him.
Thank you for standing up to him, and preserving our precious Canadian values so that they might survive his depraved government.
This Canadian, like so many others, will be forever grateful to you and your colleagues for holding the beasts at bay.
And as for the Lord of the Flies, or the King of the Crawling Cons.
Let's first defeat him.
Then see if we can jail him.
And then let's give him the monument he so justly deserves...
Please click here to recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers.
Looks good on Hannibal Harper, the one who should be behind bars. Let's hope they can do the same with his odious Bill C-51.
ReplyDeleteSimon, I want to thank you for allowing me to vent my frustrations at this thing, this Harper government, which is the lowest form of despicable imaginable. Your oft times outlandish blogs and always humorous graphics are a daily source of info tinged with sarcasm and much needed levity to keep one from weeping at these things that they do. That's how I and I believe most who follow you, get through the daily grind.
As Neil once wrote..."long may you run...".
JD
Seriously? You consider extreme, often factless blogs like this as the place to get you're daily info? Did you forget it was Trudeau who enacted martial law back in October, 1970? In all fairness, Harper hasn't even come close to doing anything like that.
Deletehi JD...you're welcome, as are all other progressives. And thanks for the kind words. I long ago made up my mind that I would not let those Con bastards get me down. I would keep up the struggle to get rid of them, and laugh in their faces as much as possible. It really bothers them. But if I can cheer up other progressives that's even better...
Deletehi anon....I'm sure JD doesn't get all his information from this blog, like you probably get from Sun TV News...oops...I mean the Sun. And I guess your Con talking points, like Joe Oliver's, must include a reference to Pierre Trudeau. How much do they pay you to troll progressive blogs? If it's more than a penny a dozen, you're really ripping them off...
DeleteAnon 9:23, I actually go over all of our media outlets, even your favorites, The Sun newspapers. That would explain your ignorance where Harper is concerned. I suggest you stick with Harper's 24/7 Youtube channel so you can lap up his taxpayer funded propaganda.
DeleteJD
A little hope at last! Harper's black circles around his eyes are getting bigger........and we won't mention the greying hairs!
ReplyDeletehi Kathleen...I'm glad you noticed the little black circles, they were quite hard to get right. I kept making them too big and making him look like a raccoon... ;)
DeleteI don't know what's crazier, the fact that you're applauding something good for gun owners, or your sheer ability to imagine exceptionally vivid narratives without the slightest bit of evidence.
ReplyDeleteIn this post, http://montrealsimon.blogspot.ca/2015/04/how-to-convince-cons-that-bill-c-51-is.html, and this post, http://montrealsimon.blogspot.ca/2015/04/why-does-stephen-harper-want-to-turn-us.html you slander and malign gun owners like blind sheep following the shepherd or something, Stephen Harper.
But, we're actually cheering this decision, and of the opinion, that the Supreme Court got it right, no matter what Harper may have to stay about it. For myself, I hope that this would open the door to considering simple possession of a firearm as a criminal offense to be tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment, but I strongly suspect that hope shall prove to be in vain.
So, please forgive my confusion, but for once, you'd think that you'd want Stephen Harper to win. I told my dearest, LGBT friend yesterday morning that for once I hoped the Conservatives would lose, and I was not disappointed. But the left cheering this "victory" is just bizarre.
As a final consideration, you, and the rest of the idiotic media for that matter, forget very quickly that this appeal was championed primarily by the government of Ontario, which couldn't possibly be called conservative.
Well said. The supreme Court is way off side on this one.
Deletehi anon...as I've said before, I couldn't care less what gun lovers think about this or any other decision. I banished them from my mind long ago. All I care about is pointing out that Stephen Harper is a born totalitarian, Bill C-51 is only the latest example. And every time the Supreme Court puts him in his place and makes him look like an incompetent idiot who can't write a proper law, or a maniac who would challenge the Charter of Rights, it does him some damage...
Deleteit does him some damage...
DeleteReally? When will we see it actually damage him? Is there a secret Supreme Court Fight Club or some such? You mean politically? Well, how exactly has that manifested in the polls again?
Why are you so insistent on not taking a sober and objective look at the real situation? I guess I can understand if you wanted to be a propagandist, but... That won't help much whent he other shoe drops.
PET PET PET: The Charter of Rights Baby, suck it up butterball!
ReplyDeleteYeah......and look how baby boy is doing with the NDP. The Liberals sure know how to pick a "leader". PET's son indeed, yesh.
DeletePET PET PET: War Measures Act, (aka martial law), Oct, 1970. How soon we forget.
DeleteHi steve...don't mention the word Pierre Trudeau, because as you may have noticed it's the Con talking point of the month, and the trolls will come running and bore us all to tears...
DeleteCanada Wheat Board sold off to foreign company:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/us-saudi-firms-to-buy-former-canadian-wheat-board/article23966156/
hi Hugh...yes I saw that, and sold to a Saudi company too. China, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, the Cons will sell us to ANYONE....
DeleteThe CBC's Evan Solomon thinks it's the 10th time the Cons have been slapped down by the Supreme Court since 2006. But Harper and his Harpercons aren't stupid. They KNOW their wacky bills are going to be rejected by the courts. They consult their lawyers ahead of time. But as was mentioned last night on The National, it plays to their base. It's more red meat for them. Harper and his Hapercons can now hit the campaign trail and say "It's the fault of those big bad activist judges that our bills have been rejected!" Harper hates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and would rewrite it or get rid of it if he had the chance. He is the most anti-democratic PM that Canada has every had.
ReplyDeleteIs Stephen Harper displaying fascist-like tendencies?
http://nickfillmore.blogspot.ca/2012/02/is-stephen-harper-displaying-fascist.html
Harper Watch
https://harperwatch.wordpress.com/
Harper Chips
http://hchips.ca/
The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism
http://www.rense.com/general37/fascism.htm
hi David...I realize that it's designed to appeal to their rabid Con base who oscillate between Liberal judges and Benghazi. But as long as other Canadians are revolted I'm more than satisfied. The fact that the Cons have done it so often can only tell us that they are unfit to remain in office...
DeleteIt is hard to figure out why a government would pass laws which violate our constitution. Are they that stupid or do they think they are that special? it is doubtful they are all that stupid and certainly some government lawyers will have pointed out the Cons were on the wrong track. of course they are Cons, with a number of them in jail, convicted, charged, or under investigation. I think it not unreasonable to suggest the Cons think they are that special that they can do as they please and not be subject to the Constitution of Canada. Harper and his Cons need to remember the Constitution was written so ALL Canadians would be protected from bad laws. A parliament isn't there to just pass laws which are acceptable to their financial base.
ReplyDeleteFrom Andrew Coyne's March 9, 2015
Deletehttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/andrew-coyne-imperious-conservatives-and-runaway-supreme-court-set-to-collide
[snip]
Even so, I can’t imagine the government would think it would win a straight-up battle for popular opinion with the Court. The percentages don’t support an explanation rooted in simple partisan advantage-seeking. Rather, I think it is aiming for a much larger target: the Charter.
It is no secret that many Conservatives have long chafed at the notion that acts of Parliament should be subject to constitutional override. It wasn’t the Court’s judgment they questioned — it was the whole concept of judicial review. For these Conservatives, the remedy, short of abolishing the Charter, has always been the notwithstanding clause: Section 33, allowing governments to pass legislation in defiance of the Charter, provided they declare openly they are doing so, and with the stipulation that the legislation must be renewed every five years to remain in effect.
While the clause has been occasionally invoked at the provincial level — or, under the Levesque government in Quebec, routinely — it has never been used by any federal government. Even provincially, it has been so rarely used of late as to be in danger, with the passage of time, of becoming a dead letter.
hi e.a.f...as David said they're doing it to pleasure their base who would rather take their instructions from the Bible rather than from our earthly laws, or our Charter of Rights. But the fact that they would do that deliberately is as low as any government can go, and shows them up as the scum they are,,,
DeleteCall me confused, but what exactly is the problem with having a mandatory minimum sentence for someone using a prohibited weapon in the commission of a crime? Is it just because Harper came up with the idea?
ReplyDeleteThe key words here are prohibited weapons, not restricted weapons. We have mandatory minimum sentences for far lessor crimes, but if you hold up a bank using a fully automatic Uzi, there isn't?
I think the supreme Court, (and like so many of these blogs are becoming), is akin to the Republicans in the US versus Obama; no matter what he says or does, they're against it and start with factless fear mongering, juvenile name calling, for no other reason than just to be against it.
As a left leaning liberal, I have to disagree with the supreme Court on this one. As such, I may (or may not?) be popular with my compatriots or other readers, but facts are stubborn things and a spade is a spade.
you are confused for sure and you more surely aint no lefty, you right wing troll.
Deletego whining back to your teabag haunts you anthropomorphic miscreant.
if you like heil harper so much, you're definitely one of his jackbooted, fascist supporters.
left-leaning my ass!
It IS quite confusing, but I'll try.
DeleteI do consider myself a law-abiding person. I own guns. I just renewed my license. I sent in the renewal paperwork over a year in advance of the expiry date. Why would I do that? A year? Really?
Yes. A year. Why? Because the CFO of Ontario, or more precisely the office of the CFO have been known to drag their feet when it comes to renewals. Some people have been known to wait 6 months or more for the renewal of their firearms license. And guess what? The moment that license lapses, until the SCC decision Thursday, the second that license expires, if a person still has guns in their possession, it's a three year mandatory minimum. Or, it was.
Worse, it's reverse onus. What's that mean? You have to prove, in court, that you did, in fact, have your license. In other words, you have to prove your innocence. The state does not have to prove your guilt. This flies in the face of the presumption of innocence.
Charter? I wish it applied to people like me, but thanks to the Firearms Act, it basically doesn't.
Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure? I don't enjoy that protection. The CFO can call any time and basically demand entry to my home for the purpose of inspection. More, I have to help incriminate me if they so demand.
Here's where it gets confusing. The Ontario Liberals among others have a fetish for gun control, and a fetish for putting gun owners in jail. Or trying to at least. The longer, the better, and that's why they appealed this decision all they way to the Supreme Court, but not say, Ian Thompson, because the law probably would have been struck down for being void of vagueness. The federal Conservatives are modestly trying to make my life easier, but it's always at the expense of some overbearing authoritarian impulse. Personally I'm sick of that, but... I've challenged leftists on this several times, and asked, "where else can I go?" Nobody has ever managed to deal with the problems of the Firearms Act; generally speaking, they don't know ANYTHING about what's actually in it. Or worse. They don't care.
Gun owners wouldn't oppose mandatory minimum sentences for serious criminal offenses involving firearms... if we could reasonably depend upon the protections enshrined in the Charter to come to bat for us when even our meticulous attention to detail and slavish adherence to vague regulations STILL manages to land us on the wrong side of the law. Thanks to Alan Rock and the federal Liberals, we can't. We've parked our votes with the Conservatives because they're the only federal party that still bothers to treat us like people. As far as every other party is concerned, we're better off in jail.
I don't believe for a second that the person who claims to be a "left leaning liberal" is one. A real liberal describes himself as a liberal or a Liberal--not a "left leaning liberal".
DeleteWhat real liberal or Liberal would disagree with Canada's Supreme Court, which is simply reminding the Harpercons that portions of their bills/laws are unconstitutional?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms
The British Parliament formally enacted the Charter as a part of the Canada Act 1982 at the request of the Parliament of Canada in 1982, the result of the efforts of the government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
hi anon 9:15 pm...mandatory minimum sentences are never a good idea, because they remove the discretion of the judge. One case might not resemble another, so punishing both with the same sentence can lead to travesties of justice. I suggest you read some of the arguments against it, made by some of the most distinguished legal experts in Canada and the U.S. where minimum sentences have been found wanting long ago, and enlighten yourself further. Or just ask yourself this one: why would we want to fill our prisons further when the crime rate is going down?
DeleteA scorecard of the Harper government’s wins and losses at the Supreme Court of Canada
ReplyDeletehttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/scoc-harper-gov-scorecard-741324
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c/supreme-court-mandatory-minimums-for-gun-crimes-unconstitutional-1.1822644
McLachlin also took aim at the government's core justification for tough sentencing laws, which it says is to keep Canadians safer.
"The government has not established that mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment act as a deterrent against gun-related crimes," she wrote. "Empirical evidence suggests that mandatory minimum sentences do not, in fact, deter crimes."
The Fear Factor
Stephen Harper’s “Tough on Crime” Agenda
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2010/11/Tough%20on%20Crime.pdf
From 2011:
Texas conservatives reject Harper's crime plan
'Been there; done that; didn't work,' say Texas crime-fighters
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/texas-conservatives-reject-harper-s-crime-plan-1.1021017
Oh rats! Another Conservative law ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pressprogress.ca/en/post/another-conservative-law-struck-down-supreme-court-whats-next