Friday, December 18, 2015

Mike Duffy and the Ghastly Portrait of Stephen Harper



It was if the air was suddenly let out of the balloon. One moment the prosecutor was pounding Mike Duffy. 

The next moment he wasn't. The trial was suddenly adjourned. Ol' Duff was cut loose and left to float gently in the general direction of the ground.

Without even being asked about the biggest charge against him, the bribery charge. 

And before he and other witnesses, and the RCMP, could answer the most important question of all:



Why was Nigel Wright not also charged with bribery? When he cut a cheque to cover-up a scandal.

In a surprise turn, prosecutors in the Mike Duffy fraud trial suddenly dropped their grilling of the embattled senator Thursday without asking him a single question on the infamous $90,000 alleged bribery payment.

And what did Stephen Harper know about that sordid affair

So now it's just a story about money, instead of one about the corruption of power.

And what Michael Harris calls a "shabby show trial" is ending not with a bang but a whimper. 

My own unschooled opinion is that nothing the Crown has produced rises to the level of a crime — and that is most especially true of the alleged $90,000 ‘bribe’ the senator took. No one, including the Crown or the RCMP, has given a satisfactory answer to the obvious question: If the bribe was received, doesn’t that mean the bribe was given as well? In other words, why was the decision taken to make Nigel Wright, the PM’s former chief of staff, a witness and not a co-accused?

Like Michael Sona before him, Duffy is at the heart of a political trial. The Senate’s abysmal administration and rules are what is really driving this process.


And without Stephen Harper being forced to shoulder any blame for the original sin that started the scandal... 



His stubborn insistence that Duffy was qualified to be the Senator from P.E.I. even though everybody knew he had lived in Ottawa FOREVER. 

The message is unmistakably clear: Harper didn’t care if Duffy had lived in Ottawa for thirty years, so why should Duffy?

Now I'm not inclined to be as forgiving as Harris. Duffy trolled for an appointment to the Senate for YEARS. And when he finally got the job, it clearly went to his head.

But he was pilloried.

Lots of public figures are symbolically burned in public. But not many are hoisted in effigy in the nation’s capital as money-grubbing scoundrels floating high above the Ottawa River like evil genies.

And he did pay for the crimes that others got away with.

It is one thing to make an example of someone. It is another to confuse that with justice when half the players in this tawdry drama have simply walked away from their deeds.

But then it doesn't really matter anymore. The damage has been done. The trial did help taint Harper and his Cons just as they launched their campaign. 

Ol' Duff did haunt them all the way to the election...



He did help undermine whatever credibility Harper and his Con gang still had left. He did help defeat them.

And I'm glad to report, before Duffy's cross examination came to a sudden end, he did paint one of the best portraits EVER of the real Stephen Harper. 

Duffy recounted one Conservative rally in P.E.I. in which attendees, many of them seniors, had been kept waiting for over an hour. 

 "The prime minister was sitting there in his undershirt eating a hot dog and one of the female staffers was doing what the 'little woman' should. She was ironing his shirt."




A portrait I will treasure forever.

Because it does sound like the Harper others have also described, the crass, vulgar man, who would turn the air around him blue with cuss words. 

The religious fanatic whose missionary church preaches that women should be submissive. 

The foul bully who liked to see fear in the eyes of others.

Yup. Never forget what he did to Canada.

And never stop demanding justice...

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16 comments:

Anonymous said...

And all those bastards go free AGAIN......

thwap said...

And so, once again, we see how the system protects its own. Stephen Wright's corruption and bribery of party stooge Mike Duffy (a low-thinking, shameless party hack) doesn't even come up.

A certain sort of white boy (Ford, Bryant) could probably get away with murder in this country, so don't expect that the law will come down on golden-boy Wright for something as prosaic as a bribe.

I do note (for all the Liberals who were so distressed about the NDP's desire to abolish it) that the mighty undemocratic Senate has been spared the axe.

And this sort of crapola can continue indefinitely.

GreazedLitenen said...

It should be interesting to see how long it takes Harper to retire now that he doesn't have to worry about being called as a witness. Mulroney is still unindicted after the Oliphant commission cleary showed that he had taken a bribe. One is left to wonder why there is never any legal accountability towards Neo-Con crooks, from Bush/Chaney to Harper/Wright.

Morlock said...

Don't forget, he directly incited the genocide of the people of Gaza.

https://www.change.org/p/intlcrimcourt-arrest-harper-for-inciting-genocide

Anonymous said...

I thought my comment was good enough to post???? anon FS

Anonymous said...

I had no idea that Harper had such a foul reputation in his private time. I guess it shouldn't be surprising, given his foul public persona. Now that he's not PM, more of these stories should be coming to light.

TS

e.a.f. said...

none of the trial surprised me. we in B.C. went through the B.C. Rail trial.

Looks like the Crown didn't really even present much of a case.

In a bribery case there is always the briber and the bribe. In the Duffy case, there doesn't seem to be a briber, so how can there be a bribe. of course in some cases the briber, talks and then walks. In this case no comments were ever made regarding a deal for Wright. That would not be unexpected given the RCMP, doing the investigation, reported to Poulson, who reported to Harper.

do hope that Duffy is found not guilty, writes a book and tells all. I'd buy it in a heart beat. Sort of like Stevie Cameron's book, on Mulroney, "on the take",.

Anonymous said...

Good-bye to Stephen the Seditious Separatist.

The more we know you, the less we respect you.

Simon said...

hi anon....yes it seems our search for justice will be a long one, but I'm hoping that the Liberals will eventually understand the need for a public inquiry into the crimes of the Con regime. For if they don't push back they will get run over...

Simon said...

hi thwap....I'm afraid we are indeed witnessing yet another occasion when the system protects its own. And there are two standards of justice, one for the rich and the powerful, and the other for the rest of us. And yes, I'm afraid that with the Senate now jammed with Con appointees, the Liberals will come to regret their decision not to abolish it...

Simon said...

hi GreazedLitenen...yes it will be interesting to see how long Harper continues to haunt the back entrances of Parliament, after the Duffy trial ends. If he does stick around after that it will only be because he believes he can influence the result of the Con leadership race, by still being able to attend Con caucus meetings. Either way it does look pathetic....

Simon said...

hi Morlock...I remember his actions well during both wars on Gaza, and how he refused to criticize Netanyahu, or even allow wounded Palestinian children to be treated in our hospitals. Even though many hospitals in Canada were both ready and willing to receive. For that war crime alone I could never forgive him...

Simon said...

hi anon...I'm not sure what comment you're talking about. Sometimes it takes a while to publish them since I can't use my cellphone in the place where I work. But I only delete comments if they are vulgar and/or violent....

Simon said...

hi TS...yes it's unfortunate that many Canadians have no idea of the real Harper. Most of his biographers have mentioned his bad temper, and Tom Flanagan has described his dark depressive moods. But nobody as far as I know has exposed his crass vulgarity. Which is unfortunate because until people know that, they can't really understand him...

Simon said...

hi e.a.f....it seems to me that the crown is essentially dropping the bribery charge, and trying to nickel and dime Duffy to death. Whether that works remains to be seen considering the state of the Senate. But the bribery charges is the most serious one, and from the moment the RCMP decided not to charge Wright the fix was in...

Simon said...

hi anon...if any separatist movement takes hold in Alberta, you can be sure that Harper will gravitate towards it. But at least we've got rid of him and that's all that counts...