It's a pandemic nightmare right out of Kafka, where the roar of a media mob turns reality on its head.
And a decent prime minister who has worked tirelessly for months to defeat a murderous pandemic, and get the country back on its feet, is suddenly called a "criminal."
For the "crime" of failing to recuse himself from a cabinet meeting in his rush to get help to more than 35,000 young Canadians.
It's so petty, I didn't think Justin Trudeau should even have bothered to apologize.
But decent will do what decent does.
“I made a mistake in not recusing myself immediately from the discussions given our family’s history and I’m sincerely sorry about not having done that,” said @JustinTrudeau about the decision to award WE Charity the contract to administer the Canada Student Service Grant. pic.twitter.com/TQ4OsbefYo— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) July 13, 2020
I thought it was a pretty good apology, even if the "crime" never happened. The student program was cancelled or postponed. So that's the Kafka part.
But what shocked me was the way the Con media reacted to that apology...
They looked REALLY disappointed, as if they couldn't believe that their fake scandal was over. Already.
Others in the Con media did their best to blow up the story like a balloon, and tried to make it sound like the BIGGEST story in the world. Bigger even than the pandemic.
Andrew Scheer tried to help them hype the story by calling for a criminal investigation.
But he just looked ridiculous, or even more crazy desperate than usual. And it just didn't work.
The problem is the Con media live in a fetid bubble almost totally disconnected from the real world. They swim like a school of fish, they savour each others farts.They whip each other up into a frenzy of excitement.
But in the real world, as Heather Mallick points out, the fake WE scandal is just another boring Ottawa story.
The current Ottawa mood is flat. It always is. This is an Ottawa story. Canadians don’t like Ottawa because Ottawa thinks the world revolves around Ottawa. It does not.
But sadly one where everybody loses by the cancellation of a good project.
The Liberals looked inattentive and naïve, the Conservatives looked desperate for a peg on which nasty Pierre Poilievre could hang his glasses and his little red wagon, WE laid off new contract staff, teenagers won’t start work soon, and parents will have them hanging around irritating everyone, including themselves.
And in the middle of the fleeting summer, before a possibly deathly fall, Canadians need tiny "scandals" like they need a hole in the head.
Just ask the tiny separatist Yves-François Blanchet, who has been demanding that Trudeau separate from his own government.
But will now probably have to separate himself to deal with his own personal scandal.
It's a farce. And as I've said before, since most Canadians believe that Trudeau has done a good job, when the Cons and their media stooges attack him, they'll only make him more popular.
As these latest poll averages show, despite the way he has been attacked, the fake scandal seems to have done him no harm.
And he's still on his way to a massive majority...
And no wonder.
While the Con/NDP/Bloc ménage à trois play cheap politics, or just rub against each other and squeal with excitement, Trudeau just keeps showing them what a real leader does.
I know this is hard for the Cons to accept, and they must be in great pain, as their disappointment slowly builds, and they realize that the Great Satan will not be toppled after all.
Their stooge media will also be devastated, by their record of failure, and by the contempt of most decent Canadians, who believe that playing gotcha games in the middle of a pandemic is about as low as you can go.
And who will in just a few months, almost certainly reward Justin Trudeau with the majority he so richly deserves...
27 comments:
I do hope so. It's early(?) but the initial tea leaves seem at least mildly favorable. Cousin Coyne in his latest drivel appeared to be fuming that the first round of polling showed virtually no movement but for the MoE, and he and his irrelevant buddies like Fife (who, let's not forget, was retweeting Murdoch gossip trash that made insinuations about Sophie and Idris Elba while she was sick) can't seem to convince people why they should care. Most of Quebec is talking about Blanchet's imbroglio and the massive #metoo reckoning for men in the far sleazier entertainment business.
Michael Harris, JWR fanboy has a cynical take reflective of earlier Abacus polling from last year's election, which showed that supposed "backroom deals" issues were not high on voters' radar because they cared more about things that affected their daily lives. I would think healthcare should rank even higher this time because, to paraphrase James Carville, it's the pandemic, stupid.
Meanwhile, Skippy is still demanding that Crooked Hillary Trudeau testify before a Benghazi star chamber, Jesse Brownshirt has completely jumped the shark and started retweeting Brian Lilley, the trash men of the Con media are having another pile-on against Heather Mallick, and Matthew Green and Charlie Anguish have circled the horseshoe and started sharing Postmedia garbage about Maggie again.
I tell you what, I'm sick of men and I'm sick of media. The one thing that does cause me some butterflies is the close relationship the WE brothers themselves have with the press. Since Cons clearly don't get any flak for their partnerships with WE, would they forge a bargain with the media to throw PMJT and his family under the bus to protect themselves and their organization? The vendetta that the "establishment" clearly has for the Trudeau family is really, really sick and I hope people can see that.
You should follow Lean Tossup, Simon. Their model is as good as if not better than 338 and PollTracker, and their analysis is good as well. Evan Scrimshaw, their head writer says that if the Cons are so pathetic that this is all they've got and/or they're unable to make any hay of it, they deserve to be disbanded. I really wish they would!
In my opinion this scandal should remain front-page news. Clearly it's such a national crisis that Scheer needs to stay on as interim Con leader in order to stick-handle the party through it. Cancel the leadership vote immediately and postpone it until the crisis has passed!
I would even be in favour of an early election so that Canadian voters can pass judgement.
By all means let's have this out. I heard I think it was Poilievre on CBC the other day saying governments had been brought down over less. Well by all means, let's have it out.
JT confessed to an ethical lapse, so how is this scandal in any way "fake?" Despite the ethics commissioner's warning to all MPs in April about conflicts of interest in the selection of charities, Trudeau admits he done goofed in not recusing himself. The guy's got the ethical sense of Ivanka Trump and for the same reason - he's been shielded from accountability his entire life by wealth and privilege. He can't believe that rules apply to him.
Anon 9:02 because the rules actually aren't that clear
https://ipolitics.ca/2020/07/15/process-nerd-how-clear-are-the-conflict-of-interest-rules-when-it-comes-to-family/
It's one thing to make an honest mistake in the rush to get programs out the door during a pandemic, out of enthusiasm for a cause that's been near and dear to his heart for years: helping youth. It's quite another to be like Ivanka Trump (seriously???) and be deliberately on the take.
The only "scandal" is that the media, Cons and their equally desperate lapdogs in the Bloc and NDP blew what amounts to a procedural error way out of proportion to make it look like PMJT is self-dealing. Like I said, this is Clinton Cash Canada, the populist canard of "she gave paid speeches to Goldman Sachs!" Sad to see the NDP echo Con talking points and rile up the mob by tweeting about the shadowy, nebulous cabal of "Laurentian elites." Might as well say that Margaret Trudeau got paid by George Soros. Petty, paranoid populists with PP problems is all they are.
Yet in doing so, they ended up fomenting the same kind of unfriendly sausage makers who tried to kill him (a story that they buried, which itself is a scandal of journalistic malpractice) to go after his mom and Morneau's kid. Brown is such a hack he makes Ezra look worthy of a Pulitzer. They think they're Woodward and Bernstein. They're grifters and shakedown artists selling tabloid sensationalism to garner subscriptions to their lame Internet outlets. The 35,000 kids who lost out on this opportunity and the safety of the Trudeau family are just collateral damage in the quest for "investigative journalism." Otherwise known as a torqued smear campaign.
Brown has been chomping at the bit to take down WE for years. Now he sees an even bigger opportunity to take down the Trudeau family and the Liberal Party all in one fell swoop. He's a narcissistic grifter with a malicious hate grudge who's finally getting a pat on the head from the same Con media he claims to be a "critic" of.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/journalist-jesse-brown-is-quick-to-expose-the-failures-of-canadian-media-but-what-about-his-own/article22488107/
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/jesse-ferreras/jesse-brown-article-guardian_b_12614732.html
I suspect Jesse and his Brownshirts would crucify someone else for not recusing themselves from the table when procurement for crosses and nails was being discussed.
If the rules are unclear, a prudent person who has twice been nailed for ethics breaches gets guidance the ethics commissioner. As for the rest of your post, tl;dr.
So I'm not one to believe John Ivison for attempting to sow division in the ranks, but a coup is a coup is a coup. One begins to wonder who might have set Trudeau up. Vendu, vendu?
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-ivison-the-ethics-commissioners-key-question-was-the-decked-stacked-in-wes-favour/wcm/edc81385-0c46-4851-8b1e-4895614f74ed/
Here's the part that really makes me sad:
WE and its founders, the Kielburger brothers, were known to both men and the youth issue has been close to Trudeau’s heart since he chaired the Katimavik organization before entering politics.
So he's being portrayed as some corrupt self-dealing crook when all he wanted was to help some kids. The only upside I find in this hate screed is that he says Canadians are likely to tune out the bullshit theater of committees over the summer.
As for everyone else, a pox on all their houses. Trudeau comes at things with good things in mind and gets ensnared in mudslinging, backstabbing and bureaucratic red tape.
Politics is truly the refuge of scoundrels. Meanwhile, kids continue to suffer and a second wave is on the way while these asshats continue to play their stupid, jealous games.
Fuck everything. I'm incensed that anyone would take advantage of a pandemic to overthrow a duly elected prime minister who, while not a perfect person, has every bit the best of intentions in his heart.
They want to bring down the government, by all means go right ahead. It's their suicide, not his.
Anonycon, so you're not going to address Brown being a lousy source who for years had zero respect among the Con media he claims to hate, yet who all of a sudden became a star muckraker once he started flinging muck at Trudeau?
The guy fucking blew his wad in a criminal trial to get a "scoop". Do I think Ghomeshi is a jerk with some peculiar predilections, yes. But last I checked, being a jerk isn't against the law.
The bastard deserves the Gawker treatment, and I hope he gets it good and hard, either from the WE brothers themselves or the Trudeau family's lawyers after what he's done to inflict pain and suffering upon Margaret Trudeau. He's trash. If this report had come from Ruble Media, it wouldn't even have gotten the light of day. But it comes from a "respectable" "progressive" podcaster and takes aim at the feckless opposition's favorite punching bag, so surprise surprise, it has legs. Particularly in the age of populism as informed by the psychopathology of tall poppy syndrome that infects the Canadian psyche.
Notice that he's such a "progressive" that his talking points have been picked up by Jeff Ballingall's short pants boys who are now accusing Trudeau of "stealing" from a kids' charity. The horseshoe effect is real, and it deserves to boomerang back right into their smug ugly mugs.
Brown is a grifter who deserves to be ruined in a lawsuit like the innocent people he smears. Anyone who takes his bullshit at face value is either an idiot or a fellow traveler with a nefarious agenda. That's not tl;dr, that's the truth.
nothing burger, ate it still hungry
I just watched the Finance Committee hearing and was it ever fun.
Chagger had the sweetest smile while she was biting Pere the prick on the nose.
Charlie Angus, who I used to admire , asked questions that just made himself look stupid. Cuck,Chuck, Chuck; don't ask questions when the answer can hurt you.
The chair, smiling and chuckling told the MP's to behave or he would kick their ass.
Rachel Warnock showed us how lucky we are to have the public service we have.
Hi Jackie.....You’d think that the Cons and other human scum would behave better during a pandemic, but apparently they can’t control themselves, and neither can Jiggy Singh’s ghastly NDP. What a disappointment Singh has turned out to be. But don’t worry all this will pass. Canadians will recognize Justin Trudeau’s exemplary leadership and they will reward him with another majority. And won’t that be just what the doctor ordered.. 😺
Hi Sixth Estate...Well if you put it that way, maybe I could also enjoy this shocking scandal. But seriously I think your plan might work out really well. The more Cons like Poilievre try to blow up this scandal, the greater the chance that it will backfire and hit them where it hurts. Trudeau will be able to claim that the minority parties are not interested in working together to defeat the pandemic and rebuild the country. And I think most Canadians would understand why we need an election. So maybe something great will come out of this,,,
Hi anon @9:02....I call it a fake scandal it’s because I don’t consider an ethical lapse in the middle of a pandemic to be a scandal. All Trudeau wanted to do was get help in a hurry to more than 35,000 young Canadians. And the real scandal is that the Cons, and their NDP and Bloc stooges decided to hurt all those kids just to try to hurt Trudeau. Good luck suckers, you fell into the trap, and now you are going to be pulverized by a massive majority...😎
Hi Jackie....The Cons can try to smear the WE charity and its two founders as much as they like. But there are at least a million young Canadians out there who will tell them they’re wrong. The WE organization is a bit too corporate for me, but they do a lot of good, and the kids they attract are some of the finest and most noble and idealistic in Canada. That’s what reallly infuriates me. But since I’m not as noble as the WE kids I’ll settle for good old fashioned revenge...😉
Hi Steve....I wouldn’t eat those burgers, they’re bad for you. In normal times they can sicken you, in pandemic times they can kill you...
Hi Rumley
I didn't watch the committee, but I am impressed by Minister Chagger in general. Does anyone else remember how Chuckles caped for Jody after calling her incompetent -- and now he has the nerve to whitemansplain an accomplished woman of color??? He puts the hippie in hypocrite! Everyone condemning her testimony online is a white male academic or some useless pundit complaining about "Liberal Twitter." Or Jesse and his brownshirts who are indistinguishable from the same chuds who follow Post Millennial and Canada Proud.
I should add that one of the smartest personalities on Fact-Checker Twitter (I guess facts have a liberal bias) is a former public servant herself who is also a woman of visible minority identification. You all should follow Ishat Reza. She owned some asshole law professor, Jack Spratt or something, with receipts and he blocked her. His dick shriveled up because he lost an argument to a brown woman on the Internet. I like Katie, but she's kind of soft while Ishat takes no prisoners, a necessary skill when dealing with these vicious Cons and their useful idiot enablers in the NDP. I think Trudeau should hire her instead to run the PMO.
BTW: Rachel Wernick, you may recognize the name, she is the daughter of Michael Wernick, whose testimony at the last fake Trudeau smear scandal -- about people facing the risk of being shot -- has proven prescient. Again she was attacked by Cons and their Dipper lapdogs as being a partisan hack. Nevertheless, she persisted. And she's following in the family footsteps of being an honorable public servant. If that's a conflict of interest, sue me!
Hi Rumleyfips....I didn’t see the Finance Committee hearing, but just the thought of Poilievre of carrying on like a puffed up fascist inquisitor is enough to make me vomit. And Charlie Angus, who I also used to admire, isn’t much better. He has many good qualities, but the bad influence of Tom Mulcair, who I also used to admire, And the 2015 disappointment, made him too much of a bitter Anti-Trudeau partisan for my taste. But as I told the others I truly believe good will come of this. Trudeau will be able to go for an early election as early as October, And strike as they say, while the iron is still very very hot....
Hi guys I just want to clarify, Rachel Wernick is Michael Wernick's sister, not his daughter. But that might have something to do with Skippy, Charlie and that Bloc guy snarling at her. But while we're on the subject of family squabbles and perceived conflicts: I still think Andrew Coyne should recuse himself from the Probe & Wail if all he's going to do is write trash about his cousin.
Tom Mulcair, is Justin's cousin too. Celine Dion sang for the UNSC bid. She is also Justin's cousin. Should he have recused himself from that? Is she related to Mario Dion? The land is strong and the Trudeau family is bigly. But such is the nature of politics. The Kennedy family was bigly and so is the Bush family, etc. etc., Bob's your uncle and I'm my own grandpa.
I mean Canada is so geographically big yet seems so relationally small. The whole country seems like one big conflict of interest. Wouldn't everyone have to recuse themselves from everything lest a stray branch of the family tree pop out of nowhere, and then nothing gets done? Why is this a "scandal" for any other reason than the Cons are at 28% in the polls?
Hey, where's our resident Dipper defenders? Do you approve of this???
Still want to cape for the New Deplorable Party after Charlie teamed up with Barrett to call for an inquisition into Margaret's personal finances? Excuse me, Margaret Trudeau is not on trial here, and Justin was not PM in 2008. What the actual fuck has this got to do with the student grant program or "holding the government accountable"? Barrett has the nerve to accuse JT of "robbing the bank" as he and Charlie team up to mug an old lady for her purse!
https://twitter.com/gtlem/status/1284218459312791553
Wow, joining the wingnuts to beat up on the elderly is a really good look for the "conscience of Parliament." So progressive! And Chuckles has the nerve to say "but we don't want to drag Margaret through the committee"? No, he wants Justin to resign, otherwise... Margaret will get dragged through the committee. Explain to me how extortion is an example of "ethics"?
I am outraged. This is absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable. I expect this from the cons but the NDP is now officially joined at the hip. Own it. Your party is vile and indefensible, and there's no going back from this. There are sharks in the water all right, and you've jumped them all. This isn't about "ethics." Not that it ever was. It's a witch hunt against a democratically elected prime minister and his ailing mother.
Justin needs to call an election right now, and lay the blame where it deserves: on these garbage men attacking his mom and weaponizing Canada's democratic institutions during a fucking pandemic to do exactly that. The venom on display for the Trudeau family is palpable. This is really a new low.
This is no better than Bernie surrogates attacking Hillary Clinton by going on Fox News. Great job of the NDP to prove once and for all that their flavor of orange is the color of Trump.
Okay Stevie Harper progued parliament, and now JT is Hitler?
I hate to be a pest guys, but I'm nervous and shaking again. Abacus just sent a teaser tweet saying they're seeing "substantial" movement in their latest survey. The WE brothers just published an advertorial in the National Disgrace, which tells me that they and the press are working together to throw Trudeau under the bus. Some pundit went on PnP, he's from Montreal and said "the WE thing is sticking." So it looks like it is going somewhere, just like SNC. Oh, I feel sick.
Chrystia says she has full confidence in Justin, which I thought was significant: she's swatting down all the people calling for him to stand aside for her -- in other words, if he goes down, we all go down, and you're on your own with the Conservatives in a pandemic. I really appreciate that from her, and it shows she's got Justin's back, unlike JWR. But that apparently seems to be what voters want, to throw away all the good that the Trudeau team has done because of this overinflated smear. God I hope not.
All I can say is that with what the committees are now doing to his mom, if Justin did decide to leave, he has every right to go out with his head held high. This is not normal politics. This is character assassination of the lowest form and now his mom is being dragged into it. This. Is. A. Coup.
I'm still 100% in his corner, but I'm patently disgusted by the fickle nature of an easily manipulated electorate, and the scum who manipulate them for personal gain. Shame on them for dragging this wonderful family through the mud just to see their polling numbers go up! What sickens me is that it always fucking works!
Hi Steve
JT is not Hitler, of course. It's more like he's being made out to be a bizarre hybrid of Trump, Nixon, and "Crooked Hillary." Charlie Anus is Donald Trump, going after Hunter Biden to hurt his dad. He's a fucking thug. I hate this rotten lowlife scumbag and his mafia politics. Look at this. Read this tweet Lagatta, Gyor, Salamander, where's the Dippers on this board to defend your party? Tell me right now that this is not extortion!
https://twitter.com/CharlieAngusNDP/status/1284221936122441729
Today liberals filibustered for 3 hours to block collection of docs showing Trudeau family financial links with WE.
I offered a compromise - we will turn the docs over to Commissioner
IF
@JustinTrudeau
agres to testify.
They asked for the weekend to decide.
We await his answer
Go to hell, Charlie. Get Covid and go to hell. I wish I had Twitter because I'd tell him straight up that he's a lowlife sack of shit aiming to humiliate and destroy a family. I hope Justin does show up and tell him off straight to his face. So done with this shit. The NDP are orange TrumpCons torpedoing good government in a pandemic and attacking an old lady to squeeze her son's balls. Prick.
Trudeau should prorogue parliament, or just walk away from this abuse and tell Charlie to fuck the hell off. I am disgusted with his antics and the lapping up of the deranged Dipper cult. I can't believe this is happening in Canada. This is so surreal it actually makes SNC look tame.
Me again, apologize for being so panicky and spamming the thread.
I'm just letting everyone know I sent a letter to the Star about how outraged I am with Angus' behavior at the committee. I described it as Trumpian and said that him demanding Margaret's financials is just like Trump demanding dirt on Hunter Biden. And that as an American, it disgusts me to see the "progressive" party emulate Trump-style mafia politics in Canada.
I hope they publish it. I'm on the fence about sending him a letter along with yet another message of support for Trudeau (and Freeland) but at least one paper got my missive. This is just being abusive and is now an obvious witch hunt against the Trudeau family. Charlie has disgraced himself and his office. He has weaponized parliamentary proceedings against a private citizen, and at that, an elderly woman with mental health issues. He needs to resign.
The toronto star has been sold, allegedly backed by the same people who allegedly make the national disgrace and the dark side of the moon tabloid.
Thank God people no longer believe everything they read in print. To bad the tv does not have the same stigma.
Nevertheless, there is no more free press, its all facist all the time.
So it's hit CNN now and they're saying this will be end of his career
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/17/opinions/trudeaus-ethics-scandal-pandemic-we-charity-bociurkiw/index.html
I'm really worried. I hope not. But what I find weird is that this guy attributes the UNSC bid to the "decline of the Trudeau brand" even though actual foreign policy experts in Canada said that it was not a popularity contest about Trudeau. Also, "first prime minister to break the ethics statute" -- which was created in 2007, when Harper appointed a lapdog to sweep all his violations under the rug. And has only been weaponized by Cons to undermine Trudeau.
Yaroslav Baran is a Con, isn't he?
Ozark Mountian Derdevils had a Jackie Blue LP. On of my favs at the time.
I Canada we have a little more common sense than to believe the accusation is criminal.
Sorry to leave so much graffiti, but one more and then I'm out. Probably for the summer and maybe until the new year. I can't take this anymore. As if you needed it, here's even more credible proof that the NDP have devolved into a hate group fanning the flames of populist violence. "Ken" here is an NDP supporter who should spell his name with three Ks. Still think I'm in the wrong or Simon is, by calling these phony progressives out as "toxic Trudeau haters"?
https://twitter.com/VE3ZKS/status/1284976813178073090
Last time @JustinTrudeau was b4 the Ethics Commish it was reported Justin hindered his investigation. PM can [say] no to an Officer of Parliament. He can't say no to MPs in said parliament. Oliver Cromwell affirmed this when he severed Charles I head from his neck.
Add this to the pile where Andrew Scheer regards him as Ceausescu. Take a bow Dippers, cheering on the assassination of the prime minister and bullying his ailing mother is no longer the sole domain of the stochastic terrorists on the right. Dipper, Tory, same old horror story!
Why don't you call up Peter MacKay to play justice of the peace and he can make it official: just merge the CPC with the NDP and have a big old Klanbake with the friendly sausage maker. If politics makes for strange bedfellows, then I now pronounce you deplorables for life. You may kiss Frankenstein's bride.
Hi Jackie....I’m always glad to hear from you, but I’m sorry to see that the state of things is getting you down. Take some time off if you feel you need it. I’ve been taking some time off myself. The next six months are going to be the most decisive months in modern history, and we all have to be in good shape to bury the Cons, and their grotesque NDP stooges. I’m looking forward to it, but I’m going to need you to help me hold off the trolls who have been swarming this blog like angry hornets.
I’m sorry to say one of them was lagatta, who has been insulting me and you like a crazy woman. But I threw her out and will make sure she never defiles this blog again. These are hard times but enough is enough...
Post a Comment