Monday, April 01, 2019

How The Con Media Is Threatening Our Democracy



Ever since the SNC-Lavalin affair erupted, I have been complaining about the way the Con media have hyped the story, and kept it alive far beyond its best before date.

With a never-ending torrent of biased stories clearly aimed at trying to use Jody Wilson-Raybould to destroy Justin Trudeau.

Which in my opinion is a far bigger story than the so-called fake scandal, for it threatens the very foundations of our democracy.

And could help elect Andrew Scheer and his far-right Cons, who are a mortal threat to this country and its values.

But I had to admit that I didn't really understand the monstrous size of the problem, until I read this.


And then I was both stunned and horrified, for those are the kind of numbers you might expect to find in an authoritarian country or a Banana Republic.

And I was further horrified by the way the ghastly Con hacks at Postmedia went after Graves.

Trying to make it sound like he was having a meltdown, even though they can't deny that what he said was true.

And nobody can deny that the Con media is a throbbing tumour at the heart of our democracy. Not just for the way they have hyped the fake scandal, or lowered our moral standards like this other Postmedia reject does here.

Let's assume for a moment, since many have already, that Jody Wilson-Raybould's actions as they relate to the SNC-Lavalin saga have indeed been driven by a toxic combination of malevolence and self-importance.

Perhaps Wilson-Raybould had the worst of intentions — take down the leadership, destroy the party, ennoble her reputation, profit somehow. Great. If true, that's an interesting peripheral element. 

But Wilson-Raybould's character has no bearing on whether the Prime Minister's Office tried to interfere in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, which is the principal question of this entire affair.

But also because of the way the Con media has made a mockery out of our parliamentary system, by allowing the fake scandal to bury far more important stories. 

The budget was a critical opportunity to turn the page, and yet two days after it was introduced, it had fallen off the front pages of the national media. In its place was a return to a regularly scheduled program of SNC revelations.

The budget did not fare much better on television, either. The day after its release, CBC’s Power and Politics covered it only notionally, before moving on to a smorgasbord of other news, including Celina Caesar-Chavannes’s resignation, Jane Philpott’s remarks that there was “more to the story” on SNC-Lavalin, and the marathon voting session underway in Parliament.

CTV’s Power Play similarly skimmed the surface, while Question Period devoted an entire segment with the chyron, “Budget overshadowed by SNC-Lavalin.” 

As well as by allowing Andrew Scheer to get away with this kind of attack on the Trudeau government's new carbon tax.

Without getting hammered as he should be, for failing to mention the rebates Canadians will be getting.

Or even worse by allowing Scheer and his grubby Cons to avoid being held properly accountable for their climate change denial,  and their alt-right extremist sympathies.



While the two Connies are allowed to run rampant.



And members of our shabby Con media can't decide what's more important, the fake scandal or the future of the planet.
But while all of the above is obscene, and a measure of how low this country has fallen, the biggest threat lies ahead.

For who could trust the grubby Con media not to try to steal the election, by covering the campaign the same way they have covered the fake scandal?

And this is the bottom line: unless the hold of the Con media can be broken, our democracy will be in terrible danger, or at best little more than a joke.

So denounce them, boycott them, cancel your subscriptions, do what you can to cripple or destroy them.

Before they destroy our country...



36 comments:

  1. Harper's conglomeration of state propaganda is paying off in dividends. Bastard. Not just Postmedia but CBC, aka the Conrad Black Channel, Conservative Bias Channel, CRAP Bullshit Channel, Completely Bought Channel, Corporate Buyout Channel and most of all, Cancerous Boil on Canada. We have a Sinclair family down our way that is by no means the good Sinclairs, Margaret's kin, but a right-wing monopolistic yellow-journalism machine that churns out nothing but regurgitated Fox/Breitbart garbage on something like 75% of local outlets. Newspapers are completely consolidated into something like half a dozen oligopolies if even that many. CNN isn't "liberal media" either. It's owned by Trump's buddy Jeff Zucker. Postmedia is tied in with AMI, literally the National fucking Enquirer. There is no free press. Justin has fought a good fight, an honest fight because he has always been telling THE TRUTH. Not "his truth" or some other such subjective bullshit. THE TRUTH and nothing but THE TRUTH.

    Our rightful President can attest to this: HE WAS FRAMED!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy

    During her tenure as United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton drew controversy by using her family's private email server for official communications rather than using official State Department email accounts maintained on secure federal servers. ... The controversy was a major point of discussion during the 2016 presidential election, in which Clinton was the Democratic nominee. [It] received more media coverage than any other topic during the presidential campaign. Clinton and other observers argue that the reopening of the investigation contributed to her loss in the election.

    It is Hillary's Emails all over again. I hope this issue of overwhelmingly lopsided media bias comes out in Gerald's and/or Justin's subsequent books. As for right now, thanks a lot, Jody and Jane Kardashian and your BFFs in the Trudeau Derangement Syndrome tabloid media, and by thanks a lot I mean fuck you very much. They learned from their American paymasters, American influencers very well. "Because it's 2016." It's always 2016. It never stopped being 2016. Everything Trump touches dies.

    Burn the lying press.

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    1. e. a. f.12:31 AM

      /agree the press is Canada leaves a lot to be desired. However your comments regarding JWR and JP are not appropriate. slagging these two women brings nothing to the discussion and will be used against the Liberals come election time. Currently, in Nanaimo, B.C. we have a bi election. Its usually been held by the NDP. How the bi election turns out, may forcast how the federal general election goes.

      The media is not going to stop covering any of this as long as progressives continue to fight with each other on this topic and attack JWR. It is seen by many as an attacked on Indigenous people. Put it behind you and get on with working towards working for your favorite political party. If progressives within a party are fighting with each other how are they going to fight the election. There is more to talk about in this country than the JWR/Trudeau things, what ever it is.

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    2. Hi Jackie,,,,Allowing the American hedge fund owned Postmedia to swallow up so many newspapers was a massive mistake, that has allowed that grubby company to become little more than a Con propaganda service. But as I wrote in my post, there are ways to damage the Con media and try to force them to be more balanced, and we will explore every one of them....

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  2. Hi Simon,
    Here I've been reading you for some years? (How old is this Blog?)
    So, only since this crisis broke, have I been inclined to not only read but reply.
    And, only since having done that the other day, inclined to carry on further:
    i.e. Today, I did my bit for God and my country.
    Sent my message to my Liberal MP.

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    1. Hi brawnfire...This blog is now more than twelve years old I believe, but I’m glad it only took that long for you to start contributing to the comment section. šŸ˜‰ and I’m even happier to hear that you sent a message to your MP. Canadians have always tended to be a pretty complacent group but with our country under siege by the far-right, we can’t afford to be like that any longer...

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    2. Thank you, kindly, Simon.
      Not complacent--my excuse? The Harper years I deemed as hopeless, so....and then, relief, along came Trudeau, so....
      (Although, in each case, I spoke up whenever these two subjects came up, but face-to-face.)
      I must add, it's been about the last 4 yrs all told, I've been otherwiwse traumatized by Trump.

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  3. I've smelled this stench before, Simon. Hillary's Emails, 24/7, the US media, drowning out the myriad of scandals of an actual con man criminal. It is happening here. 80 percent conservative is no surprise. See the number of papers that regularly endorse them... almost universally over 80 of Canadian dailies. We need a left response, media wise in this country. In the US they have some lefties with deep pockets funding progressive media. Do we have that person here?

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    1. Edgar Bronfman is the only one I can think of. He should kill Postmedia to avenge what they've done to his friend. But the US doesn't really have progressive media. We have a few liberals at MSNBC like Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid and little else. The rest are spineless "access journalists" who put that bastard in the White House for ratings. Disgraced sexual predator Les Moonves spoke the quiet parts out loud when he said "Trump may not be good for America but he's been great for CBS." Jeff Bezos is no one's friend but Jeff Bezos. "Liberal" CNN and the NYT were two of the worst offenders in 2016.

      Read this from Columbia Journalism Review. It wasn't all Zuckerberg and Dorsey's fault although they're another diabolical duo who need to have their asses handed to them. Nope, it was the good-old-fashioned cable news bobbleheads and the paper of (broken) record.

      https://www.cjr.org/analysis/fake-news-media-election-trump.php

      Interesting to note the only legal (fair use) upload still on YouTube of Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry" is a parody video by none other than Global News. We all know that C.R.A.P. is king.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHimia_Fxzs

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    2. Hi Brian...I agree, we are seeing the same thing happen here as what happened in the U.S., and for that matter what has been happening in Britain. But at least they have publications like the Guardian and the Independent, while we have nothing. I think part of the problem is that we have been too complacent. I started attacking what I dubbed the Con media about two years ago, and if more people did that some of the papers out there might become more balanced, and some person or group with deep pockets might see that there is room for a left-wing alternative to the right-wing pap they are feeding us, and we might be off to the races...

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  4. Anonymous6:39 PM

    JWR is a Con mole. There's no longer any other explanation.
    The 'holier than thou' hyperbolic chat she illegally taped with Wernick shows what a truly disturbed person she is and how much she must loathe the party that brought her to power.
    Judas.

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    1. Mark my words, this is her gift to daddy. During Pierre's centennial at that. It's like if Darth Vader raised Leia to destroy Han Solo. She tied him to a kitchen chair, broke his throne and cut his hair. Why, why, why, Delilah?

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    2. e. a. f.12:40 AM

      Jackie Blue, this comment really is beneath you. Attacking JWR in this manner is just lame. No one pays attention to these types of comments because they're so off the wall.

      A. 6:39, the audio tape JWR made is not illegal. It is legal in Canada to tape a conversation as long as one party is agreeable to it and that party was JWR. What you do with the tape is another things. There are various court rulings on the matter, but one thing is sure, it can not be used in a criminal court case. the manner in which JWR used the tape is perfectly legal. She has done nothing illegal and there a number of Liberal I've spoken to in B.C. who are fine with it. They will ontinue to vote for JWR and Trudeau. They just are tired of hearing about it one the news and of course are certainly wondering why progressive blogs such as this one is still carrying on as if there were a crisis. There isn't. Its just a lot of drama. surely things are bad enough in Ontario that people could begin discussing that.

      As to you ontinued disrespect for Bill Wilson, it says a whole lot more about you than the media has to say about this whole mess. Really do you or anything think JWR is doing this as a "gift" to Bill Wilson? that is simply too over the top to even contemplate. You sound more like a Russian troll attempting to sow dissent amongst the ranks of progresives.

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    3. Hi Anon @ 6:39 pm,
      At the very least she shows a machiavellian streak. A dodgy thing to do, not just the taping, but, the saving it for later, the whole while purportedly telling "her truth" when she testified.
      Decision day on what to do her and her friend: imo, clean house. Libs would do well to remember their old motto: All sand and no dirt, clear grit all the way through".

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    4. Anonymous10:48 AM

      e.a.f. - In Ontario it is against the Bar Association's guidelines for a lawyer to record a client's conversation without first advising them. JWR is a member of the Ontario Bar. Her discussions with Wernick while she was AG fit this definition.

      UU

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    5. Hi anon @6:39 PM....I don’t know if JWR is a Con mole, but there is not doubt that she is serving their interests and should be ashamed of herself. Those in the legal community who have had the misfortune to come into contact with her claim that her approach has always been very conservative. So choosing her on the basis of her race and her gender and expecting better was clearly a huge mistake...

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  5. Anonymous10:16 PM

    Its like watching a slow motion train wreck with the JWR baggage car in the front being pushed by the Post Media and Scheer nonsense locomotives from the back. Canadians need to ask a simple question rather than be suckered in by the media hype. The question is " what would our justice system look like if the AG acted truly free from any political influence. Just imagine a situation where the Sheer cons who have promised massive pipeline builds are in power and the justice minister with a green agenda fails to prosecute the protesters to the maximum extent of the law. Of course that will never happen because the appointed AG would be thoroughly vetted beforehand and have a proven ability to read the leaders signals without having them spelled out in black and white. Everyone knows how it works... for example an 89 year old granny dies in the latest police raid creating a public back lash, the leader promises an investigation, the AG immediately launches one and months later nothing is found other than the granny was in poor health and should not have engaged in illegal activity. No collusion just an ability to effectively read and support the party and its leader. Trudeau obviously though that an independent minded justice minister would set a good example for the future but he forgot to check out the baggage compartment and as a result needed to make a course correction. More a learning experience than a scandal. Sometimes to answer a question we need to visualize what things would look like in the extreme. Say for example an AG is independently selected with political views opposite to the party in power at the beginning of each cycle and is allowed to decide legal matters totally on their own. The mind boggles at the level of conflict this type of process would cause especially for the Cons. In addition to fighting the supreme court they would also have to attack the justice department. Hey AG what do you mean by insisting that if a senator is charged with accepting a bribe someone has to be charged for offering it? Why do you recommend rehabilitation rather than push the crown prosecutors to seek maximum jail time so we can build more prisons?
    RT

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  6. Anonymous10:17 PM

    Completely agreed! JWR must be a seriously ‘disturbed person’. JT gave her an opportunity of a lifetime — she got elected on his shirttails of the red wave he created by working hard criss crossing the country. He then sets her up in her ‘dream job’ when she is woefully under qualified as a rookie lawyer who had only ever practised as a jr CP for 3 years and a jr MP. It takes a certain kind of sociopath to knife your ‘friend’ and boss in the back the way she did and tapes the PCO when she was still a cabinet minister? She’s gone mad not just rogue. Must look under her bed every night for boogey men also. Trudeau’s fault was being naive to trust her with this cabinet position that requires the gravitas, maturity, Wilson and experience she clearly doesn’t posses. Time to get this ‘tosser’ and her BFF out of caucus and try and repair the deep damage. Thank you Simon for helping galvanize Liberals to stop the country from ruin under the con moron insurance salesman who looks more crazed by the day. A maniac.

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    1. e. a. f.12:47 AM

      reads like a troll wrote this. progressives normally don't slag each other in this manner. We will wait until the riding JWR holds, has its constitutency meeting to nominate their candidate for the upcoming election. If Trudeau truly thought the Liberal could hold this riding with out her, she'd be gone, but as I've commented previously this riding takes in a large area in the City of Vancouver and includes some of the most expensive real estate in Canada and then goes over to parts of the east side of Vancouver where less well off people live and has more rentals.

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    2. Hi anon@10:17 PM...There are times when I have also wondered whether JWR is playing with a full deck. Her actions seem irrational and I hear she is not great to work for. Those who have had the misfortune to have to share an office with her say she is a very angry person, and I get the impression that getting on her wrong side would be very unpleasant...

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  7. Anonymous10:43 PM

    Interesting CBC opinion piece on how the JWR non scandal is drowning out real issues such as climate change. Seems the dynamic duo will be gone by Tuesday but unfortunately not forgotten. https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/climate-change-report-1.5079886

    RT

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    1. Another terrific piece from Neil Macdonald. Jody is putting the most toxic methane into the atmosphere, and the M$M is acting as conduits for pollution.

      I'm coming around to he should be the one to collaborate with Justin on a subsequent book, since Jonathan Kay who helped edit Common Ground has drowned in alt-right Kool-aid.

      Perhaps Justin and Neil will call it Bullshit Theatre.

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    2. Hi RT...Thanks. I liked Neil’s piece so much I wrote a whole post about it. I must say that one of the reasons I’ve been able to blog for so long is that I have a great team of excelkent helpers...

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  8. e. a. f.12:24 AM

    Get a grip here Simon. Of course the media is more Conservative than the general public because the MDM is owned by very rich people who would like to become richer and they believe the conservative party will enable them to achieve their goals. Post Media, approx. a year ago, was owned by an American hedge fund to the tune of 48%. That was the max. allowable a foreign entity could own a Canadian media conglomerate. Speaking of conglomerates, that is what the MSM is, a few conglomerates which own almost all the newspapers, t.v. and radio stations. If you look up their owners, these people have had nothing in common with working Canadians. The conditions which exist today were provided for by both the Conservatives and the Liberals. Both parties changed laws from time to time to benefit corporations. its been going on for decades. This is what we end up with at this point in time. The Canadian public has continued to support the politicians who did this. No one ought to act surprised about what is going on at the present time. The Liberals have contributed to this situation over the decades they have been in office, they were after all referred to as the natural ruling party of Canada. No one has the right to declare the federal Liberals "victims" at this point in time and that includes Trudeau. He did nothing to break up the conglomerates We have laws in palace to prevent this sort of thing, or at one time did. So you reap what you sow.

    As to the coverage the media will present in the upcoming election, its going to be what the corporations want it to be. On the other hand Canadians are fine with it because they continue to purchase the newspapers, continue to purchase the products that sponsor the tv and radio stations. There are those in B.C who didn't like the political bent of the Vancouver Sun and province (Post Media) and haven't purchased these newspapers in two decades. from time to time that is discussed on various blogs out here. If newspapers couldn't find any one to purchase their papers they might begin reporting in an unbiased manner.

    Not many in this country watch CBC news. In B.C. its Global and they aren't friendly to anything even close to left or progressive. They're good at reporting shootings, killing, muggings, etc. The real news, not happening. During the 16 year reign of error and corruption in B.C. all we got from the MSM was nothing. The real news was on the blogs, written by people like Norm Farrell, Laila Yuile, RossK, B.C. Mary, etc. All the Post media papers were good for were to act as press release agencies for the BC. LieberCons and that is how they managed to stay afloat.

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    1. Hi e.a.f...you get a grip. I don’t care what the reasons are, I will never accept that level of Con media bias. As I have said and will keep saying that’s a threat to our democracy, especially in the age of so-called fake news...

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  9. Anonymous7:39 AM

    Strange isn’t it, that the shabby Con media that is so intent on supposedly destroying Trudeau is reporting on all the bullshit coming from Rob Ford and his government. Strange how they reported all of the bullshit that came from Harper and his government.

    No, it’s not media that is destroying our democracy. It’s simply the indignation of a group of people who prove more and more everyday that they are members of a cult, in this case the Trudeau Cult of Personality, over media doing its job and holding their messiah to account.

    As e.a.f. wrote, get a grip.

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    1. Know how I know you're a troll? Rob Ford is dead. The bullshit coming from Doug's personal fiefdom hasn't generated a fraction of the wall-to-wall coverage that the Trughazi "scandal" has. Or Jason Kenney's felonious behavior that leads directly to Harper's litterbox. The only cult of personality here is the temple of doom with the shrine to St. Jody of Arc that the Postmedia cabal and its attendant bishops at the Conrad Black Channel have put up to bury Trudeau. Why don't you go have a look at what party the rags have endorsed for a decade if not more. Not that you will, because trolls are only interested in "their truth" rather than facts.

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    2. Anonymous12:31 PM

      Anon 7:39, Strange how some people remember things. Harper was given so many free passes during his dictatorship that your argument falls way short of plausible. He had his detractors but they were few and far between when compared to the ongoing feeding frenzy that's reminiscent of a herd of zombies having a feast on The Walking Dead. Remember The Vancouver Sun using a front page ad to warn voters against voting Liberal on election day 2015? Is that what you call balanced journalism?
      The Cons have complete backing from the postmedia tabloids and as such, they should display the Con logo on their pages to serve as a warning to readers that what they're about to read is heavily biased and may contain traces or dollops of bullshit.
      JD

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    3. Anon 7:39 AM...Did you read the tweet from Frank Graves at the beginning of the post? You think that’s normal and good, or do you just head for the comment section and try to sow division to earn your dollar a day from Hamish Marshall? Get lost loser...

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  10. Anonymous7:41 AM

    80%? I would have guessed 90. Regardless, at these levels it's plain to see how these Con friendly corporations have poisoned the journalistic well by employing these right wing hacks and letting them inflict (usually unchallenged) their biased opinions on Canadians. It's no wonder the Libs are now trailing the empty suited clown Andrew Scheer who has nothing to offer Canadians other than picking up where Harper left off.
    In a perfect world a 50/50 balance would be ideal but that clearly wont happen until these Con mouthpieces are shut down and relegated to writing blogs from their parents basements for the right wing lunatics who lack any ability to discern fact from fiction. Just as the abheration known as Trump was elected with bravado and bullshit, the Con MSM up here will help Scheer do the same. To use their sway in such an irresponsible manner is a gross injustice to decent Canadians that could lead us into a vomitorium much like the Trump administration. That would be unacceptable and unforgivable.
    JD

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    1. Hi JD....I agree, I find the lack of balance shows complete contempt for most Canadians who are centre-left Liberals not Cons. And the reason I suggest we try doing something about it is because in Twitter Land some of those pressure tactics are working. Some CBC programs are calling up more centre-left experts, and even newspapers like the Star which has been tracking right, have corrected their course. So it’s worth raising hell or we will end up living in a right-wing nightmare...

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  11. Anonymous10:52 AM

    One thing that doesn't seem to get mentioned by the MSM is that the Crown Prosecutor asked for a DPA and it was rejected by the PPSC. The Crown has not yet successfully prosecuted SNC. Any "convictions" were plea-deals. Court cases have ended in acquittals.

    UU

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    1. Hi UU...I know, and I find it infinitely frustrating. When even people like Andrew Coyne keep making DPAs sound like a complete absolution it really is the limit. But as you know the media seems to have given up explaining things, and is more interested in click bait and conflict, so we are left to educate our peers as best we can....

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  12. How apt, the title of your post, Simon: How the Con media is Threatening our Democracy
    Well, there at the Supermarket checkout this aft it stared me in the face. The April cover of Maclean's magazine with an impassioned Trudeau caught in a frozen moment, and all in caps, across the page, THE IMPOSTER......by Paul Wells.
    That had me seething inside--My inner drama queen was playing a Norma Rae, just thinking about the thousands that can't miss it, even when they don't buy it. The horrible man is not JT it's the author of the hit piece.

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    1. Hi brawnfire....yes, that was a particularly offensive cover story wasn’t it. When I first saw it I could feel my face turning red, I was that angry. And then in the evening I became ven angrier when I read a tweet from Rosemary Barton announcing that the Con fluffer Wells was a “late addition” to the At Issue panel. So they encourage each other and help spread the poison. And you’re right, Wells and those of his ilk, are the real imposters and unfit to stand in JTs shadow. For whatever you may think of his policies, he is a decent person and a real Canadian...

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  13. A. 10:52 a.m. that certainly is bringing facts to the table. thank you. perhaps there is more to the story than JWR and Trudeau. Perhaps it has to do with the law.

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