Victorian C36, sex work and the CPC god-and-pony show

If last week's opportunistic display by the Harper government Con MPs at the special Justice Committee's hearings about C36 wasn't enough, today's rightwing fundamentalist religious histrionic zealotry given voice by CPC useful idiot Bob "Douchert" Dechert amply illustrates Poe's Law.

The collective CPC and its individual MPs' squalid, Christian Taliban-like beliefs about sexwork are deeply gynophobic, cruel and oppressive as well as redolent of 19th century England hypocrisy.  Not only is Bill C36 unlikely to survive a Supreme Court of Canada challenge, it expresses the worst of Harper Cons base support's most vile attitudes towards women as victims, and sex as inherently evil unless redeemed by holy marriage.

It brings to mind this sexist joke, an artefact of 1950s assumptions, that first-year law students may still hear from a creaky member of the Old White Boys' Club:

Having been propositioned by a well defined and uptown prostitute one evening, a successful single gentleman agreed to have consensual sex with the young lady for the sum of $500.00. After the evening ended the gentleman handed the young lady $250.00. The prostitute immediately demanded the balance and threatened to sue if she didn't get it. "That's a laugh!" the man stated, "I'd like to see you try." A few days later the man was surprised to receive a summons ordering him to appear in court as a defendant in a lawsuit. The man hurried to his lawyer's office and explained the details of the case. His lawyer said, "She can't possibly get a judgment against you on such grounds, but it will be interesting to see how she presents her case." After the usual preliminaries, the parties appeared in court ready for trial.

The prostitute's lawyer addressed the court first, "Your Honor, my client, this lady here, is the owner of a piece of property, a garden spot surrounded by a profuse growth of shrubbery, which property she agreed to rent to the defendant for a specific length of time for the sum of $500.00. The defendant obtained exclusive possession of the property, using it extensively for the purpose for which it was rented. However, upon evacuating the premises, he paid only one-half of the amount agreed upon. The rent was not excessive since it is restricted and exclusive property and we ask that judgment be granted for plaintiff and against defendant in the amount of $250.00.

The defendant's lawyer, thrown back by what he had just heard, pondered the opening remarks for a moment and stood to present his off-the-cuff version of the case, "Your Honor, my client agrees that the young lady has a fine piece of property, and that he rented such property for a period of time, and that he even derived a degree of pleasure from the transaction. However, my client found a well on the property upon which he placed his own stones, sunk a shaft, and erected a pump. All equipment belonging to my client and all labor being performed by him. We allege that these improvements to the property were sufficient to effect an offset of the unpaid portion of rent and further allege that the plaintiff was adequately compensated for the fair market rental value of such property. We, therefore, ask that judgment not be granted for plaintiff and that the defendant be awarded his attorney's fees and costs incurred in the defense of this frivolous action."

The prostitute's lawyer replied, "If it pleases the court your Honor, my client agrees that the defendant did find a well on the property, and that he made the improvements to the property as alleged. However, had the defendant not known the well existed, he would have never rented the property. Furthermore, upon evacuating the premises, the defendant removed the stones, pulled out the shaft, and took the pump with him. In doing so, he not only dragged his equipment through the well-manicured shrubbery, but left the well with a hole much larger than it was prior to his occupancy, making it easily accessible to small children, thereby creating a possible danger to the health and general welfare of the public. We, therefore, ask that judgment be granted as requested in the complaint.

Judgment for the plaintiff in the amount of $250.00!

Imagine it being told by the chortling, snorting, oinking CPC MP Robert Goguen, whilst MP Joy Smith supplies demure gasps in the background.

If you want to hear a *good* joke, read this brilliant parody of the slut-shaming "Rescue Rhetoric".

A Most Opportune Death

well, it wasn't for Flaherty but it most certainly is for Harper.

We will all die.  Every one of us.

But let us consider Flaherty's CONvenient demise and how Harper will play it out.

All in all, Flaherty's sudden death after dumping Harper and his party, is awfully CONvenient for PMSHithead - if he needs to strike fear in his partisans.

Paul Wells, a most rigorous and understated political reporter, gives us an insight into the internal gears of Harper's CPC that are grinding Canadians down as well as a portrait of a corporate conservative, here.

Flaherty's death offers Harper's Politburo glorious, flashy opportunities to display him in a *good* light which is a tactic that PMSHithead badly needs to deploy right now.

So, let's watch how Harper plays the Canadian and international media in order to exploit Flaherty's death for his own purpose.  It can be his new sweater-and-kittens schtick!

Will Harper insist that Flaherty receive a state funeral, with all the pomp and protocol, and the attendant bells and whistles? I bet he does exactly that. PMSHithead's government needs a MASSIVE sparkly diversions from all the attention the lies, the fraud and the corruption that Harper has facilitated.

As tweeter @dexterdyne asked: The Harper government has cut programs and funding for our veterans, scientists, health care, unemployed, the CBC, the public service.  So what exactly are they spending it on? 

In order to evade such probing questions, Harper's Politburo in currently in full War Room mode.  Right now its richly-paid communication flunkies are spinning tactics to best exploit Flaherty's death for maximum benefit: to make PMSHithead look *good* to voters and to the media.

They are probably looking to North Korea, as they did when they wrote the *Fair* Elections Act, for inspiration on how to shine up Harper's image.

Perhaps Harper's Politburo will claim C23 was Flaherty's brainchild; thus any critic of any word of the Elections Reform Act could be smeared (or worse?) for "disrespecting" his memory.

I suggest instead of listening and watching a week of disgusting and crass CPC Con glurge, Canadians might view _Angel Heart_ or any film that explores what happens when someone sells their soul to the devil.

Once you start thinking of Harper in THAT light... 

CONtempt™: it's the Harper CONservative party brand.

Another day, another cpc Senator in the news.

This particularly repulsive Con — Jean-Guy Dagenais — has also been a useful idiot for the Harper regime. As a former cop and past president of the police officers' association of Québec, Dagenais was a keen supporter of the federal long-gun registry.  Once tactically appointed to the Senate by PMSHithead, he CONveniently started spewing the anti-registry propaganda and speaking points supplied by the PMO.

Il a changé son fusil d'épaule.  And now, this:

In a letter sent to all parliamentarians, Dagenais referred to Charmaine Borg’s flyer as “a rag” and suggested she’s a whiny, ignorant, powerless Quebec MP who was elected by fluke and stands little chance of being re-elected.

NDP House leader Nathan Cullen said sending such a “offensive” missive to a 23-year-old female rookie MP is “paternalistic, childish, condescending and frankly misogynistic.” He served notice that he will ask the Speaker of the House of Commons next week to condemn Dagenais.

“The letter in question attacks the very legitimacy of a sitting member of Parliament,” Cullen told the Commons.

Stephen Taylor, the weathervane director of some astroturf Reformatory organization, and a self-selected arbiter on misogyny, equivocated and perorated about Cullen's observations.

What's Dagenais' next volley against the NDP elected member of Parliament?  To demand that Borg's home address and phone number be publicized, the better to incite his fellow bullies who share his views to hunt her down and sexually assault her, and finish the job that his impotent, CONvoluted p0rn-infused fantasies would want to see executed?

The collective recoil expressed by the female MPs in the NDP caucus should be noted, and respected.  Each of them knows how violence against women manifests itself in numerous and insidious ways; it is present in the truculent bellowing and lip-smacking self-indulgence of reactionary old white men who suffer from delusional entitlement syndrome.

Jean-Guy Dagenais is a prime specimen of the Reformatory plutocrats who are degrading Parliament.

Afterword: A point I raised, with regard to Dagenais' accusation that riding residents allegedly complained to him that Borg could do nothing for them: how can an individual MP redress or fix all the services and programs destroyed by the Harper governement: Employment Insurance, Veterans Affairs, Health, Environment, etc. etc.?

Update: More media pundits, all male so far, pooh-pooh the characterization of Dagenais' attack upon Borg as misogynistic.  It means women-hating, not the same as sexist.  I wonder who will be the first to label the reaction of female MPs as "hysterical".  Might be one of the anti-feminists: Wente, Lakritz or Kay-mère, perhaps Blatchford?

More update: I went looking for a useful and helpful perspective on systemic misogyny that included the vile tactics that the Harper dirty tricks handbook promote, when directed at women and launched by an Attack Parrot™ like Dagenais.

Misogyny is also – because of the very nature of its deep-seated, psychological hatred – a linking factor among the various [...] hate groups and militias. That means that people who hate women may also exhibit authoritarian, violent and bigoted behavior towards minorities.

From here.

Keep digging!

 Harper, Ford, Flaherty and some other entitled person.

The photograph was used last evening at this event, sponsored by the Canadian Labour Congress.

Julie Lalonde did a presentation for Hollaback! Ottawa.

I'll post more about that later; my DSL is wonky and my internet connection tenuous at the moment - the aftermath of last night's deluge.

In the meantime fellas, keep digging!  If you're as persistent about doing that as you are at serving corporate interests, you'll have burrowed your way to China, eventually ...

The primal ooze...

Yesterday I went to see _2001: A Space Odyssey_ with a friend.

I had forgotten how tedious the first act is, as the primates - most likely nasty chimpanzees and not collaborative Bonobos - become weaponized and discover how to dominate the rival clan by killing their leader.

My companion found that bit quite entertaining; it reminded him of recent carnage - more specifically, the take-over of the Progressive Conservatives by the Reform Party, when Peter MacKay morphed from an insipid PC into a weaponized yet still insignificant, greedy opportunist.

Do you recognize any of the scoundrels?

The ReformaTories haven't evolved much, have they?

In Harper and CON universe, bullies rule. (Part 2)

 

The opposition has raised questions about former RCMP Bruno Saccomani's qualification given this, another Harper patronage appointment, as the Canadian ambassador to Jordan.

[...] NDP international development critic Helene Laverdiere, herself a former diplomat, said there is no reason to believe Saccomani has the skills required to fill such an important ambassadorial position.

“At the moment it is one of the hottest region in the world,” she told reporters in French. “We have specialists, professionals who have been in the diplomatic service for years who know the issues who know how to represent Canada more adequately. … This is certainly not someone who has the skills for a position in an area as sensitive as that.”

Bloc Quebecois MP Andre Bellavance alleged the only reason Saccomani received the appointment was because of “his proximity to the prime minister.”

In a previous post, DJ! linked to this, with regard to Saccomani's "diplomatic skills":

The management review report, published in January [2012], paints a grim picture of on-the-job morale for the 117 Mounties who protect the Harpers around the world and across Canada.

"The (review) team found that the examples of conflict in the workplace, harassment, discrimination, intimidation and perceived favouritism given during the interviews were disturbing," says the report.

Evaluators interviewed 41 per cent of the protection unit in December, and found a majority of officers had issues with their supervisor — Supt. Bruno Saccomani. [...]

Some complained about being reprimanded in front of their peers or in public. Mounties reported they felt they were "walking on eggshells" or feared repercussions following the review.

Saccomani appears to have his ardent fans though; look how they gush over him.

Guy Giorno, Harper's former chief of staff, said he's suspected RCMP brass have had Saccomani in their sights for a while.
"This is exactly what the brass was looking for -- to put a bullet into Bruno," he said. "They were happy about this."

Since then, it appears the RCMP have changed their opinion of Saccomani.  Medication taken to curb aggressiveness?  Insider knowledge, applied judiciously to his advantage?

"In his most recent annual performance review, dated March 28 and obtained by Postmedia News, Saccomani receives glowing praise from his manager."

I would guess that Tom Flanagan knows where Saccomani's RCMP manager lives.

More about Harper Cons and their hogs at the trough patronage appointments, at Sixth Estate's blog.

In Harper and CON universe, bullies rule.

Two recent news items regarding the regard PMSHithead has for certain types of people.

First: Shirish Chotalia.

[Public Service Integrity Commissioner Mario Dion] called Chotalia's behaviour "totally unacceptable" and said that in his nearly 2½ years on the job, he's never come across a worse case of behaviour towards employees that shows a "total lack of respect."

He said Chotalia created a "poisoned atmosphere" in the workplace, and that her manner towards not just her staff but to appointed members of the tribunal was often "belittling and humiliating."

Some of Chotalia's behaviour, described in the report, bordered on the bizarre.

Chotalia ordered an employee to wear a set of keys around [their] neck despite complaints it was too heavy. During an earthquake in Ottawa in June 2010, which shook buildings, she refused to allow employees to leave their offices, despite the fact that many buildings in downtown Ottawa were evacuated. "Ms. Chotalia instead proceeded with her own swearing-in ceremony that she had organized that afternoon despite the safety requirements and staff concerns," the report said.

Chotalia's abusive behaviour was not limited to actions against her employees, but also tactically targeted individuals that her boss directed her to malign.

Then, Bruno Saccomani. 

Canada's new ambassador to Jordan comes to this patronage appointment with mixed reviews.  One can only speculate that he knows where *Pierre Poutine* is actually buried.

Given the Harper CPC operating mode, in the House of Commons, in government and internationally, is to bully, is it any surprise that such individuals are praised and promoted?

UPDATE: Chotalia's partisan quasi-legal bullying has been thrown out by the Federal Court, with regard to the case cited above.

In a much-anticipated ruling Wednesday morning, the court has rejected the federal government's attempts to prevent First Nations groups from arguing for better funding for child welfare on reserves.

The ruling means First Nations and the federal government will have a full-blown hearing about whether Ottawa is treating native children unfairly.

"It's a real victory for all the children who have waited so long for this," said Cindy Blackstock, who heads the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and spearheaded the legal challenge.

First Nations groups say Ottawa is discriminating against native kids because the support the feds provide for child welfare on reserves is much lower than what kids off reserves get from provincial governments – even though the need is greater.[...]

[The Harper government] tried to block the case on technicalities, saying it was not fair to compare federal services to provincial services.

Also, un grand merci to BloozGuy who tipped me off to the Bruno Saccomani news items.

BAT signal ON!

“We can't stop here, this is bat country!” 

― Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"

Word is out that JJ may be (soonish, DJ! hopes) posting at her blog.  In anticipation of this, as well as the tentative arrival of springtime in Ontario  ―possibly in Manitoba and Yurp as well― this seemed relevant. 

In 1985, responding to an influx of mailers promoting insurance company interests in his district, Senator Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) reportedly said, “A fellow from Texas can tell the difference between grassroots and AstroTurf.” He was referring to the difference between an actual, organic uprising among constituents and a manufactured movement often paid for by corporate or other interests to simulate the real thing. The name stuck, and since that time, the term “astroturf” has been used to describe these contrived public campaigns.

The Tea Party may be a movement that blossomed as a result of this kind of corporate astroturfing. A study by the National Cancer Institute found the tobacco industry paid millions to fund free-market oriented “grassroots” groups that were aligned with their interests against cigarette taxes, the Clinton health care plan and the EPA’s findings regarding the dangers of second-hand smoke. Many key players in the Tobacco-funded groups Citizens for a Sound Economy and FreedomWorks went on to play a major role in the formation of the contemporary Tea Party. Likewise, Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, and CSE are funded by the notorious billionaire Koch brothers, who have poured their wealth into causes such as abolishing social security, welfare and public schools.

Fortunately for astroturfers, costly forms of the practice, such as the building of physical crowds, are less necessary today now that so much of the public sphere has moved online. As a result, other forms of message control are blooming. Wikipedia is targeted by politicians, corporations and SEO advertisers desperate to improve their images on a neutral but participatory platform. The regularity of these editing campaigns can even be used to predict political appointments or running mates.

From here. Our emphasis.

It reminds us of the MASSIVE blogging fun we've shared, writing about the many failed efforts by the religious right-wing to appear significant to the majority of Canadians.

We're hoping for a scathing follow up to Marci McDonald's "The Armageddon Factor" or better still, an exposé by investigative journalists Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher on the complex range of CPC astroturf tactics, who directs them, how they're funded and if they're connected to Harper ReformaTories' electoral fraud and voter suppression strategy.


Grand merci to Námo Mandos whose hilarious post at the other place brought Gittlitz' piece to my attention.

Git your souvenir oilsands globe here!

The pitch (yeah, eh, eh, eh):



The innovator is Dan Murphy.

For extra fun, enter the search term "A Celebration of Tarsands!" at  youtube.

So, where's the CONspiracy? Has #TGDN gone global or delusional?

#TGDN = Twitter Gulag Defense Network.

In case you don't gaze towards the Excited States of America much these days, or don't tweet, this little right-wing nutjob conspiracy hoohaw might have not caught your attention.

From here:

Twitter makes it easy to report accounts for spam. When enough users report an account, it automatically gets suspended. Some users abuse this feature by organizing a group to report or “spam-block” a single account in order to get it suspended.

Conservatives created the “Twitter Gulag Defense Network” or #TGDN to stop spam-blocking attacks. Aware that accounts with more followers are less likely to get suspended, they mutually followed anyone else using #TGDN. Now that their group is organized and members are protected, they have begun targeted spam-blocking of progressive accounts, exactly what their group was created to oppose. Ironic.

Bloggers at LGF have been diligently following this phenomena and its permutations. Many have posted about the various Hatriots and other right-wing, firearm-fetishizing nutjobs who are involved.

One of my twitter friends, @fem_progress, drew my attention to this item:

A little known policy slips quietly under the radar in January 2012 as our friends at Twitter announce they will censor tweets, if a country’s government requests them to do so. A year later, Australia becomes the first modern democracy to identify, filter and ban free speech whilst not in a state of War.

In recent weeks, the censoring of tweets by Australian conservatives, or, indeed anyone who dares to either engage in political debate or offer opinion on the ruling Labor-Green alliance, has become so pervasive many have thought it was a bug with Twitter. You can read Twitter’s well hidden censorship policy here.

But now I can reveal that Twitter is actively censoring Australian tweets at the direct request of the government.

It sounds like the rantings of disgruntled Australian RWNJs and neo-cons, but if that Twitter policy does indeed exist, it could be deployed in accordance with the whims of a tinpot dictator like PMSHithead, at the request of his PMO/Politburo, to censor progressive or anti-Harper conservative tweets.

So, if this Aussie idiot has stumbled upon a MASSIVE ploy by his government, why hasn't that happened in Canada yet?  Critics of the Harper regime have certainly been quite vociferous in their excoriation of CPC electoral fraud, its corruption, its censorship of scientists and other public servants, its quasi-legal and illicit manipulations, its incessant prevarications and Rovian tactics.

My intuition tells me that it serves a greater purpose to have us scurrying around in plain view, expressing our anger, our fears, our hopes.

Harper's CPC is focused on perfecting the military precision of a volunteer and staff infrastructure that will facilitate the rigging of the next federal election in their favour, while their opponents are distraught, scattered and distracted.

Their May 2011 machinations were a taste of things to come.  Alison at Creekside has done an extraordinary job of investigative work on this matter.

So we have to get cracking on the coalition and cooperation-building NOW.  Talk is cheap, and the Cons have millions in their election war-chest, likely from the Koch Brothers foundations and possibly more that will be siphoned off from public funds now that Kevin Page is gone.

CON omertà

kirbycairo's definitive post about the Flanagan plummet cuts through the superfluous noise about "moral panic".  

At the heart of Flanagan's discourse was the legal question of the efficacy, expedience, and import of prosecuting people who consume illegal material verses those who are actually involved in the production of illegality. It is not unlike the question of dealing with those who consume an illegal product like, say, heroin versus dealing with those who produce it and distribute it. Now, no matter how sensitive an issue is one might need to address this basic legal question, particularly in circumstances of limited legal resources. But it would be impossible for someone as glib and impertinent as Flanagan to actually discuss such an issue. Rather, Flanagan always has a knee-jerk, extremist reaction to any issue. Flanagan never actually wants to discuss an issue, rather he just wants to pontificate as loud as he can to anyone who will listen.

In other words Flanagan doesn't know when to properly tailor his discourse or just keep his mouth shut. And in the end this is why Flanagan split with Harper. If Harper learned anything during his time in public life it is to say as little as possible and even if one has controversial (some might say offensive) opinions, keep them on the DL. And this is why Harper has always jettisoned political allies who he can't control, and also why his government is a grand exercise in keeping everyone around him quiet. And even those close to Harper who are regularly in the media spotlight are continually coached and controlled concerning government message.

Flanagan fell from grace because he is a man full of deeply offensive opinions who is convinced he is a scholar and a genius. It was inevitable that he would shoot his mouth off in a way that would undermine any authority he may have had. Other Harper allies like Brazeau and Duffy are similarly obsessed with their own perceived wisdom and authority. Meanwhile, other allies are just headed to jail.

Dissecting what happened to a man that the CPC and its numerous wingnut-welfare-funded mouthpieces - the Manning Centre for example - once described as "a major intellectual figure in conservative circles", the blogpost zeroes in on the operating mode of Harper's party and his government.

We have written much here at DJ! about the MASSIVE publicly-funded millions Harper has invested in the daily production of Con spin and propaganda, to portray himself and his oligarchy in the most media-savvy frame of reference.  We've dubbed his PMO the Politburo.  Interestingly enough, many CPC websites have been scoured clean of texts and photos that involve Flanagan.

Our Twitter buddy Fuzzy Wuzzy responds to a videorecording of the basic neo-conservative approach to interacting with the media with a different version of its rightwing omerta.  Hilarious!

First, from Alheli Picazo - a literal observance of "no comment": 

Then:

Duckette later said that he had been instructed by the office of Alberta Premier Stelmach not to make any comments. 

So. It's not only scientists that are muzzled by Cons.

Pity poor Tom Flanagan.

Had his verbal faux-pas occurred at any other conjuncture of the Harper dictatorship, a hastily-assembled crew of communications serfs would have nimbly cleaned up his mess.

But the CPC propaganda machine has been woefully stressed to the cracking point recently, and so Flanagan was unceremoniously jettisoned.

The first sign that his party had dumped him was a tweet from the PMO's Andrew MacDougall.

It was eventually followed by another tweet, this one quite terse, from Stephen Taylor stating that Flanagan had been dropped from the Manning Networking Conference's line-up of speakers at the annual media-savvy shin-dig.

This is not the first time the man described, by the forementioned Manning Institute as "a major intellectual figure in conservative circles", has opined with regard to the depiction of "child p0rn".

From Michael Harris' excellent piece at iPolitics:

In a bizarre exchange with a student caught on video, Flanagan said that he didn’t think people should go to jail for possessing child pornography.[...]

“A lot of people on my side of the spectrum, the conservative side of the spectrum, are on a kind of jihad against child pornography. I certainly have no sympathy for child molesters, but I do have some grave doubts about putting people in jail because of their taste in pictures.[...]

The student who confronted Flanagan also made reference to a quote attributed to Canada’s answer to Karl Rove when the Manitoba government was hurrying through tough new legislation on child pornography. At the time, Flanagan suggested the whole subject was debatable: “What’s wrong with pornography in the sense that it’s just pictures?”

As my co-blogger and virtual roomie fern hill pointed out, Flanagan's fall from the heights of Con cronyism happened as the result of sustained Idle No More vigilance, with respect to issues and concerns important to First Nations, Indigenous, Métis and Innu peoples.

The tweetstorm in response to Flanagan's insouciance has been informative. This article reinforces Harris' point about the criminality and the organized child exploitation required to produce this material.

Will the stench of the Flanagan scandal trail the MNC events next week?  For good measure, we should keep up the pressure and investigate what dodgy, hypocritical, fraudulent and possibly criminal elements the other Con speakers bring to the table.

Update: Apparently Flanagan has become a liability to the University of Calgary, too.

With so many scandals exposed, the CPC is vulnerable, and its propaganda machine's capacities stretched to the limit.  Otherwise, it would have found a way to sweep his comments under the carpet, likely by attacking the First Nations videographer who posted the damning YouTube interview, but instead they hung him out to dry.

Like vultures or hyenas, Harper's conservatives have turned on a pack member who exposed an individual weakness, for fear his action could make the whole group vulnerable to its *natural* enemies.

Must watch interview.

For the record, DJ! apologizes to Michael Sona.

It appears the guy was in the throes of electoral fervour when he dispatched by CON war room bullies to play the role of a minor thug during the 2011 federal election.  For his troubles, he was thrown under the bus.

Watch his candid interview here.

PMSHithead's government, elected by means that appear to me and many others who are working to collect the evidence of CPC wide-spread electoral fraud, cannot fall quickly enough.

I hope the members of the CPC oligarchy who engineered this assault on democracy and the electoral process suffer the disgrace and punishment they richly deserve.

 
Especially the contemptible CON above, who bragged he'd change Canada so we wouldn't recognize it anymore. I hope he spends time in jail.

Update: "Sun News is kind of an alternate method of getting press releases and other stories out from the party, right? I mean everyone knows that, right? It's just a standard comm's tactic." There's the money quote from Sona's interview (transcribed by Alison), with regard to the cozy link between StunTV and the CPC, further developed by Big City Lib's blogpost here.

How CONvenient!

The trial for Harper adviser Bruce Carson was set to resume in late October.  Following the RCMP investigation into Carson's actions while he worked in the PMO,  he was charged with fraud on the government, also known as influence peddling.

Is anybody in the Canadian media shocked to hear that it's been delayed to July 2013?  StunTV?  Anyone?

APTN is certainly not surprised by this delaying tactic.  Their investigative journalists have been on this most news-worthy story like velcro since the first stench of unethical dealings and insider contacts emerged from Carson's dealings. 

One hopes this trial clearly exposes PMSHithead and his Con Politburo's ongoing cosy connections with corporate lobbyists, with crooks and possibly, with organized crime.  

Grand merci to Dred Tory for the update. The picture of Bruce Carson was found here.

Steve's Farm Animals

Peter Van Loan. Vic Toews. Jason Kenney. Dean Del Mastro. Andrew Scheer*.

Is there some unwritten criteria that CON _movers and shakers_ in Harper's CPC must resemble the voracious four-legged residents of Willy Pickton's farm, stuffed into expensive suits?

The smug mug above is of Arthur Hamilton, the CONtempt Party's consigliere on these cases: the Elena Guergis hatchet job, the CPC's varied criminal and/or illegal manipulations during the 2006 elections, and now this.

Oh look, here's another one, eager for the opportunity to stick his snout into the CPC feeding trough.

Oink. Oink.

*anyone who believes that speaker Scheer is no longer a member of Harper's inner circle of CPC koolaid drinkers hasn't been paying attention to his decisions in the House of Commons.

Is the CPC a criminal organization?

According to this recent Supreme Court of Canada decision which defines a "criminal organization", Harper's CONservative party is that, in its repeated and sytematic and widespread disregard for Elections Canada laws and regulations.

The Criminal Code defines “criminal organization” as any group of three or more people “however organized” whose main purpose or activity is the commission of serious crimes.

The definition excludes a group that just gets together to commit a single office.

Fish wrote that courts should take a flexible approach in defining what constitutes a criminal organization.

“Care must be taken, however, not to transform the shared attributes of one type of criminal organization into a ‘checklist’ that needs to be satisfied in every case.”

Not every gang has to be as structured as the Mafia or the Hell’s Angels.

“Courts must not limit the scope of the provision to the stereotypical model of organized crime — that is, to the highly sophisticated, hierarchical and monopolistic model,” he wrote.

But there should be some structure and some longevity.

“Some criminal entities that do not fit the conventional paradigm of organized crime may nonetheless, on account of their cohesiveness and endurance, posed the type of heightened threat contemplated by the legislative scheme.”

How CONtemptuous! How CONvenient!

Source of illustration: Montreal Simon's blog.

Not a Dot, Just a Dash

In the 'you people have Harper Derangement Syndrome when you whine about seeing all those links between what his eponymous government does and the American Republican agendas' department, leave us never forget that this comedian is the same fellow as noted by the Harper Index and Desmogblog and Sourcewatch and this other place, called(coffcoff) Creekside.

I think the takeaway here is, Frank Luntz...

a/ is very aware of what he says in public and that what he said as a 'joke' has eliminationalist meaning, and that Mr. Frank was willing to go there.

b/ is very skilled at dogwhistling and damage control and continues to be welcomed to the podium to address Republican pols. Like, oh, state governors, so many of whom have been behaving...so vociferously and exclusionarily of late, bless their hearts.  I'm sure the similiarity in reasons and tactics for dealing with the Occupy movement all over North America is a coincidence.

 c/ has advice and influence still underpinning the Harper government six years after being famously linked to the Canadian Conservatives.

d/ has a dog in the Canadian fight via his corporate clientele, who aren't corporate citizens here.  Yet.

While nosing about, I found this piece and thought it amusing even the marketing fanbois were smelling Luntz in the air behind the Conservative 'rebranding' of the last year.

But it's all HDS you know, which is nothing like Bush Derangement Syndrome.  It's just independently evolved rebranding for 'are you gonna believe us or your lying eyes?'

"Not intended to be a factual statement" ...

is a seven word expression for a lie.

It originated with the flunkey who was sent out to defend US Senator Jon Kyl's very public bald-faced lie, an outright fabrication that abortion was "well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does," a claim which a number of fact-checking organizations pointed out was drastically overstated; in reality, the figure is more like three percent.

Here in Canada, Contempt Party government ministers lie routinely; from Cashmere Tony to Airshow MacKay, the outrageous lies Cons spin to cover their corruption and their malfeasance never stop.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn said of the Stalinist Soviet Union: "In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State."

Go directly to Dred Tory: Season's Creepings. Read it.

Peter "I'm Entitled to My Entitlements" MacKay

Yesterday on Twitter two of the sharpest political observers called the current run of CPC-engineered *media declarations* what it is: PR tactics deliberately launched to change the channel and divert the public focus away from the lying Con liar Peter MacKay and his lies in the House of Commons.

Well. It looks as though the 1500 or so propaganda flunkies appointed by PMSHithead's Politburo will be working overtime at Xmas, spinning fake news stories to distract attention away from this:

According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, hotel bills show that Peter MacKay spent $1,452 a night for two nights at a top-end Munich hotel, and $770 a night for three nights in Istanbul, The Canadian Press reports. His staff reportedly had rooms at the same Munich hotel for $276 a night during February of 2010 after a NATO meeting in Turkey.

Meretricious and profligate with our taxes, those Cons are.

Bruce Carson, anyone?

Addendum: Kady O'Malley's post on this.

Grand merci to Joel Duff and Ian Capstick, for their ongoing media vigilence.

Le Rove est mort, vive le Rove Nouveau!

Thanks to our buddy JJ at unrepentant old hippie, we got a bug in our ear about marketing wiz-kid and wordmeister Frank Luntz.

Luntz discussed his use of the term, "energy exploration" (oil drilling). His research on the matter involved showing people a picture of current oil drilling and asking if in the picture it "looks like exploration or drilling." He said that 90 percent of the people he spoke to said it looked like exploring. "Therefore I'd argue that it is a more appropriate way to communicate." He went on to say "if the public says after looking at the pictures, that doesn't look like my definition of drilling—it looks like my definition of exploring—then don't you think we should be calling it what people see it to be, rather than adding a political aspect to it all?" Terry Gross responded: "Should we be calling it what it actually is, as opposed to what somebody thinks it might be? The difference between exploration and actually getting out the oil—they're two different things, aren't they?"

It makes us wonder if Ezra Levant's well-funded *ethical oil* gig was an attempt to use Luntz' template for language re-engineering.

About 18 months ago, we suggested Karl Rove might be approached by Stevie's Contempt Party to provide them with a little war room coaching. As luck would have it, Rove's been quite busy putting out fires and preventing, at times not so successfully, Republican candidates' meltdowns. So ...

In April this year, Emily Dee at Voices for Democracy posted this. So the accountability (and accessibility + transparence) thing was a fucking smoke screen - suggested by Luntz. Very meta, that.

Rove is old school. Grow bigger and bigger lies: even when their fraud is unmasked, voters will be too embarassed to admit even to themselves they were taken in by the con job.

Luntz uses distraction. Locate voters' buttons then push those to shift focus on to the chosen distraction.

Though Frank Luntz may have the support of the 1% his marketing sleight-of-word is not exactly *scientific-y* foolproof.

And as Canadian Cynic would gleefully point out: Ladies! He's available AND unattached!

Oh. Wait. Like Jason Kenney?

When we updated this post about ConJobs dirty tricks to unseat Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, we added links that are worth re-posting.

Susan Delacourt tracks how the reformaTory media control unfolded, here and here.

And Alison at Creekside gives credit to other bloggers keeping track of the Harper Government™© obfuscations.