Is _Harperman_ to Stevie what _Pussy Riot_ was to Vlad?

Perhaps a living saint like Jean Vanier could genuinely feel a modicum of compassion for the venal and malevolent crew that is toiling to keep the Harper regime in power.

I do not.  In fact, I'm genuinely thrilled to gloat about the latest Harper government shit to hit the fan. 

An Ottawa federal scientist is being investigated for breaching the public service’s ethics code for writing and performing a highly political protest song to get rid of the Harper government.

Tony Turner, a scientist in habitat planning at Environment Canada, was recently sent home on leave with pay while the government investigates the making of Harperman, a music video posted on YouTube in early June that has attracted about 48,000 hits.

Mark Johnson, a spokesman for Environment Canada, said the department wouldn’t be commenting on the case because of “privacy concerns.” He said public servants agree to comply with the value and ethics code — which lays out expected behaviours — when they join the government regardless of their level or job.

The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, which represents federal scientists, said the union was representing Turner. It said he was put on leave pending the outcome of the probe into allegations that he violated the ethics code by writing and performing a political protest song.

“We will stand up for its members who face the prospect of being disciplined for exercising their democratic rights as citizens. The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed that public service workers, like all Canadian citizens, benefit from freedom of expression,” said PIPSC president Debi Daviau.

A disclosure.  I know Tony Turner, as a fellow congregant in the same community of faith.  He never speaks of his employment.  An avid singer and composer, he has worked with the congregation's youth in organizing hootenanny-style musical evenings.

Last June I posted and tweeted _Harperman_ with its exuberant cast of performers.

At the time, it did cross my mind that a humourless, vindictive prick like Stevie might use his regime's power to suppress the video.  And now we learn that Tony is being hounded through his employment.

_Harperman_ is trending today on Twitter. And @chris_sigurdson created this hilarious, brilliant meme.

We've produced many blogposts about _Pussy Riot_ here at DJ!  The parallels are clear: Harper, like Putin, is an authoritarian, ruthless, prevaricating leader who abuses his political power to stifle ideological dissidents.

In addition, Tony is a scientist. The Harper regime systematically suppresses research, muzzled government scientists, cut highly regarded programs and destroyed libraries.

No wonder the malignant narcissist who promised to destroy Canada is affronted by the words of _Harperman_.

About that journalist Bro' thing...

The vile hypocrisy on Parliament Hill with regard to explicitly shielding some politicians from public opprobrium, is nauseating.

This happened:

Except for Frank Magazine, there was a reverent hush from all journalists assigned to the House of Commons and Canadian politics beat, though some bienséants guys muttered about Matt Millar's flouting the rules of an implicit gentlemen's agreement around protecting politicians' *personal* lives.

You may recall the histrionic, outraged shriEEEking tirades expressed by Moore when the Museum of Science and Technology hosted a sex-positive and informative exhibit?

PatRiotChick aka @PatOndabak created and promoted the #RideMeWilfred hashtag on Twitter. The cone of silence around James Moore's sexting, from established PPG reporters, just solidified.

The PPG Bros won't address the CPC unofficial "Do as we preach not as we do" modus operandi when Harper Cons' purported christian family values are transgressed by the ongoing sex libertarianism of Vic Toews, Peter MacKay, Bruce Carson, Patrick Brazeau, Pierre-Hughes Boisvenu, Don Meredith (and likely many others) until, in the latter's case, there's a witness/complainant courageous enough to denounce the predatory aspects of power.

Someone whined about violating the *privacy* of the government employee's BlackBerry that contained the self-incriminating sexting between VanGirl & Moore. 

My co-blogger asked:

My response:

Juxtapose how Harper Con MPs reacted when they learned Vikileaks tweets had been posted from a government IPS provider.

Yet not one peep from the CPC benches on this very *personal* exploitation of a taxpayer-funded BlackBerry for non-governmental use.

A journalist that I greatly admire for his rigorous writing disappointingly displayed his complicity with the Brotherhood, exhibiting deference for Moore's recent resignation to spend more time with his family.

Fortunately, Frank Magazine did not obey the Bro's code, and wrapped-up the whole typically disingenuous CPC act, thus.

Seems to me, in light of the commitment that's required to care for a child with special needs, Mrs Moore is the one who could have benefitted from an adventure on the side, to restore and sustain her energies.  But I suspect the Brotherhood would NOT have expressed the same depth of compassion for an outside-the-conjugal-bed idyll she might have pursued, as they overtly did for Mr Moore.

Bait and Hate

On March 8 2015, International Women's Day, the Harper government's Minister for Defence and Multiculturalism tweeted this:

Journalist Glen McGregor caught the mendacious tweet and investigated whether the misleading images were duplicitously used.

An article in La Presse has an interview with a scholar based at l'UQUAM, regarding the authenticity and provenance of images used in Jason Kenney's tweet. He deplored the lack of rigour shown by this tweet as well as the misrepresentation of what the images actually portray: the dramatization of a religious historical event (much like Catholic Good Friday re-enactment) and the public recitation of Coranic verses.

The press secretary to Minister Kenney, who is also responsible for Multiculturalism in the Harper government, declined to respond directly to requests for clarification regarding the choice of photos.

"This type of question obscures the real issue: [Daesh/IS] is a threat to women and minorities; it is a genocidal terrorist organization, a threat to national and international security," wrote Lauren Armstrong in an email sent to The Canadian Press.

That photo in the upper right hand corner is a still shot from a short video that Karren Brown found:

Kenney's tweet implied that the tearful girl is a terrified child bride of a Wahhadi Daesh fighter.  She isn't.

Watch the video. The girl is competing in a contest of memorization of religious text.  Her head is not covered.  Her audience is composed of supportive community members who encourage her.

Though there are other religions who do justify potential endangerment and harm to children because ... their ideology rules. Three years ago we wrote about the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board and how it facilitated such activities.

Yes, it's April and those three boys are exposed to the elements.  The board has now removed the photos from its Brampton school's website (child pornography?) but Andrea Houston got a screen cap which she kindly provided.

Kenney is a fundamentalist Catholic. My co-blogger is very fond of this video of a young and rabidly zealous Jason.  He didn't complete his undergraduate program.  We suspect that the Jesuits were far too liberal for his proclivities.

Need we remind our readers, as well as befuddled Harper Cons, that the Catholic Church facilitated, tolerated and enabled mental, physical and sexual violence exerted against thousands and thousands of children for centuries.  In countries like Ireland, the Philippines and El Salvador, women are still struggling to cast off the oppressive control of the Vatican's misogynist ideology.  They have uncovered great injustices and loudly demanded accountability from the Church.

Nonetheless, Harper Cons are putting all their communication eggs into one basket: systematically deploying fear mongering tactics to incite hatred and fear of Muslims as they ramp up to a fall election campaign. Also: fundraising!!!

On Monday evening, the leader of the Liberal Party

[..]accused Harper's Conservative Party government of blurring the line "between a real security threat and simple prejudice." In particular, he criticized the decision of a judge in Quebec to refuse the case of a Muslim woman who wore a hijab to court, arguing that it was a "troubling trend that Mr. Harper seems keen to accelerate and exploit" and linking it to the Conservative government's proposed ban on the wearing of Islamic face veils during the oath of citizenship. 

Trudeau told his audience. "So we should all shudder to hear the same rhetoric that led to a 'none is too many' immigration policy toward Jews in the 30s and 40s, being used to raise fears against Muslims today."

On Tuesday Harper's dog-and-pony show continued in Parliament, as his Minister for Public Safety obliquely referenced Islam during his presentation on Bill C-51 in committee.  Blaney justified this, claiming that "hate speech" sows the seeds that culminate in horrific events like the Holocaust. He rambled on, even alluding to the mass slaughter of Tutsi by Hutu.

The minister compared jihadist declarations to Nazi propaganda, saying "the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers, it began with words." 

"Violence starts with words," the minister repeated. "Hate begins with words. I can talk to you about the genocide in Rwanda that began on the radio."

He was taken to task by NDP MP Randall Garrison who suggested Blaney was trivializing the Shoah. Later, the minister's office denied that he had paraphrased verses from the Qur'an. 

Since we're on the topic of hate speech, biblical text are still used to justify violence against women. The actions demanded in Deutoronomy 22:21 that Gary Pearson partly cited above may no longer prevail in law, but they persist in the stigma attached to sex work and in the shaming of women who refuse to let their sexuality be controlled by religious ideology.

"then they are to take her out to the entrance of her father's house, where the men of her city are to stone her to death. She has done a shameful thing among our people by having intercourse before she was married, while she was still living in her father's house. In this way you will get rid of this evil."

None of this is happenstance. Ordinary secular political parties are not seized by urgent, totalitarian needs to foment ethnic fear and religious hatred against muslims in order to stay in power.  But a party that is in thrall to Evangelical christian religious fundamentalism and bankrolled by foreign interests, as Harper's CPC is, certainly would be. 

The last words belong to Jed Bartlet, _The West Wing_ fictional president inspired by Jimmy Carter with some daubs of JFK.

Deploying religious text to expose the ugliness of religious fundamentalism.

Of interest to those with no particular religious adherence: the word TERROR entered the political vocabulary during the French revolution as these events unfolded. A demonstration that any ideology, even anti-religious, can be used to justify violent government repression.  

UPDATE: The hoax photos that Kenney deployed misrepresent their original use. Taken from an anti-Muslim hate-inciting site. Thoroughly deconstructed here.

More Harper Lies

DAMMIT JANET! should have been doing this on a weekly, if not daily basis since Harper took power.

Since 2006, his regime has perfected the art of ideological spin to an artistic apex that surely has Goebbels clapping wildly in his grave.  Here's one wrap-up of obfuscations deployed by his thousands of communications flunkeys.

Remember Vic Toews' _line in the sand_ ...?

Boy, that sure was some hugely volatile speaking point, charged with insinuations that had previously worked momentarily for Harper in the 2005 election campaign.

Only it backfired again, this time with a MASSIVE pushback.

Here's the reality with regard to the Cons' disingenuous, desperate tactic.  It turns out that Harper's government isn't really all that committed to providing the RCMP with adequate resources to investigate, gather evidence, charge child pornographers and bring them to trial.

In fact, Harper and the RCMP dropped the ball as soon as it was evident that their regime could pursue other avenues for spying upon, harassing and destroying organizations and the lives of people who didn't agree with them, or openly opposed their policies as is allowed in a democratic country.

The CRA has been directed by Harper to audit specific organizations. The RCMP has been told to focus on First Nations, Métis and Indigenous resistance movement and its leaders, as well as environmentalists.  CSIS will be empowered to disregard constitutional rights as it spies on those identified as *terrorists* by Harper and MacKay.

And now, it appears that Harper/Kenney monstrosity, the _Monument to Victims of Communism_ might allow Nazis and Third Reich officials to be remembered, since the figures cited include these people.

[...]memory squares will be embedded in a series of ascending folded concrete rows, rising 14.5 metres at their highest point. Visitors will be able to walk among the rows and touch the memory squares to “viscerally experience the overwhelming scale of the Communist atrocities,” says the winning team’s statement of design intent.
At Thursday’s announcement, Kapusta referenced Josef Stalin’s infamous statement that “one death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.”

As our friend Jay Watts III notes:

He also raises these valid points.

For the modest sum of $1000, folks who admire the work of Wilhelm Kube could have his name inscribed on one of the Memory Squares.  He is one of those "victim of Communism"... included in the statistics deployed by the Harper Cons.

The Contempt of Harper Conservative Reformists: enabling child pornographers, glorifying fascists and eventually jailing Canadians who disagree with them.

If things continue his way, Harper will be remembered for human rights abuses as egregious as those of Joseph Stalin or Robert Mugabe.

Why aren't intelligent blondes speaking up against this abomination?

A few weeks back, I joked on Twitter about how *some* blondes made the whole... race? species? look dumb, and that the smart ones should sue for defamation of character.

You know, just as every secular, cultural or religious muslim should loudly, publicly denounce every act of violence committed by barbaric individuals and groups who exploit an ideological interpretation of Islam to justify their carnage and sexual terrorism. 

And now this, in my email box this morning.

Just put "Eve Adams" in a search box on Twitter. Hundreds of tweets and re-tweets.  Some amusing. Some informative. Some trenchant. Some ... not so much.

One has to wonder if the testosterone-endowed members of the LPC even bothered consulting the savvy women in their party to ascertain whether accepting Adams was a sagacious decision.

At DJ! we wrote this about Adams right after the 2011 election. Before the first break-up with Soudas. Their reconciliations. The betrayals. The ongoing media soap opera.

So. Did Eve Adams jump or was she pushed?

There's a third possibility.

She and her partner Dimitri Soudas are being deliberately planted by Harper to gather intelligence on the LPC election campaign plans and to deliberately derail them.  Yes, that would be quite a crafty, brazen Machiavellian move — but remember how the CPC was founded?

Or, the toxic duo's tactical defection to the neoLibs is temporary, one that they will leverage when Harper is gone and the CPC flounders as the PC did after Mulroney's departure + Kim Campbell's ignominious defeat in 1993. Will DimEve Soudams™ triumphantly return to the party with considerable political *assets* that can be exploited?

Frank has another take, as always quite irreverent.

Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, one is reminded of this famous unblonde quote:

UPDATE: Harper's Politburo/PMO orchestrates the predictable drive-by bousillage with the gleeful assistance of its pet trolls, Attack Parrots and smarmy QMI stenographers. This one from Sun hack Lorne Gunter is particularly vile and sexist.

Journalism is NOT rocket science

A tweet by Sunny Hundal put a bug in my ear this morning.

This factual news report was produced by an independent, local TV resource and posted on Youtube.

REAL news are popping up everywhere, putting to shame many of the establishment media workers who have become far too cozy with their corporate overlords and the terms of their quasi-indentured employment.

So complacent and blasé are such pseudo-journos, they'd arrogantly assumed that quaint old notion of ethics with regard to conflict of interests in reporting was no longer relevant.

Karma is indeed a bitch.

Hundal's tweet reminded me of the modest yet thorough Lori Martin and the professional manner in which she handled a random PMO-generated information packet that arrived unsolicited at her newspaper, the Barrie Advance.

My co-blogger wrote this about Martin's extraordinary challenge to lazy, *laissez-faire* reporting which appears to have become standard operating procedure.  Martin refused to be a stenographer for the speaking points provided by a Harper Politburo/PMO communication hack.

There are still many old-school journalists steadily doing the news gathering and reporting they believe in - though ego-driven *enfants terribles* tend to get all the glory.

Michael Harris is of this calibre.  Not a single fact in his best-selling _Party of One_ has been countered, disputed or proven wrong by Harper's army of flunkeys at their keyboards.

Bloggers like Creekside and independent news organizations also hold a wild card: dissemination by social media, which sometimes goes viral.  Unless the Harper regime shuts down access with its new legislation that it will try to ram through Parliament to maintain their CPC partisan control. Though I trust more allies like this one will emerge to challenge PMSHithead's autocratic ploys.

Pressure from unfettered media, as well desperate attempts to spin damaging facts that will leak during the election campaign from those Harper's kleptocracy has bullied, antagonized and silenced, could derail the CPC communication strategy.  And the internal cracks are getting bigger.

Let's be fuelled and inspired by the model of what people power did in Greece which gained momentum and will prevail.

Wacking the Piñata. With updates!

C36 — the Harper government, with its usual doublespeak flair, titles it the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act — is just one MASSIVE piñata of a Bill.  And when it is whacked, all sorts of goodies come tumbling out. Like Don the Plumber's John School™ - but more on that, later.

No no no.  This piñata  is NOT what you think it is.  Get your mind OUT of the gutter.

This piñata was previously a commemorative War of 1812™ genuine papier mâché artillery cannon replica produced for its never-ending celebrations and now recycled by the ever-so thrifty Harper government. It was spray-painted Barbie™ pink to please the ladies. 

"What's in the C36 piñata ?" you may ask.  Although it was thoroughly wacked at the House of Commons Justice Committee proceedings, it appears that more goodies are popping out for the Senate committee studying the bill.

MacKay, speaking to reporters, said the Conservative government decided to take a calculated risk that any Charter challenge would ultimately fail.

That’s largely because, he said, the law is a legal shift towards outlawing the purchase of sex and viewing prostitution as the exploitation of “vulnerable” women, not the nuisance targeted under the now-unconstitutional laws against street prostitution or bawdy houses. 

The bill doesn’t “enable prostitution” but it will still allow those who “claim to freely choose” prostitution to do so safely, work indoors or hire body guards, said MacKay. It gives “legal immunity” to prostitutes, and so directly “responds to” the Supreme Court of Canada’s concerns in its Bedford ruling in December, MacKay told a Senate committee studying the amended bill. [...]

MacKay said he made his own assessment after discussions with “other lawyers and judges.” He shrugged off the prospect of more court battles.

“I’ve been around this place a while,” MacKay said. “I’ve practiced law, I’ve argued both for and against certain Charter submissions. But I don’t suffer from Charter constipation.”

So. The unCONstipated Minister for Lady Parts and Weaponry Peter MacKay claims that sexworkers will get "legal immunity". 

Some senators, who are also lawyers, are not so sure how that "legal immunity" would apply.  

Wait!!! Here's a thought. Why can't the C36 pinãta offer "legal immunity" to ALL women and girls who suffer any form of sexualized violence? Most harassment and rape isn't perpetrated by clients or johns. Shouldn't every woman and every girl be *rescued* from daily sexualized violence too?

One man speaking to senators was adamant that clients should all attend John School; his contention was that "fathers and grandfathers" who buy sex services are completely transformed by the program.  Presumably none of them ever sexually harass or violate ANY woman EVER again.

(Hell, why not send every Tom, Dick or Harry to John School?  That's the ticket; compel all boys and men to complete this program; those who actually don't coerce women (or pay them) to have sex can mentor the ones who do.  Surely that's the logical outcome to C36, if the premise is actually what the Cons pretend it is.... Aaaaand, make sure CPC MP Bob Dechert is sitting in a desk at the front.)

Then there's senator Plett — so thoroughly repulsed and disgusted by sexwork that he would deprive sexworkers, specially those who have chosen this work, of legal protection and their right to safety. 

Employees in high-injury-risk occupations as varied as firefighters, healthcare professionals, cops, stunt performers, soldiers and pro athletes choose their work because of the high income, the benefits and the opportunities they derive from it.  But Plett doesn't see any of that; he is affronted that defiant women won't be shamed nor called victims, thus he wants them to be threatened, endangered and harmed.

Sour grapes! Bitter candy! Mouldy sweets! Senator Donald Plett wants those BAD women who don't want want to be rescued, PUNISHED!

My co-blogger fern hill looked into Plett's background. Hint: he's no lawyer but some of his best Con friends are...

The biggest, sparkliest, juiciest goody in the C36 piñata is that mythical whopping 20 Million $$$ that would ostensibly fund "rescue" programs that Evangelicals and Prohibitionists who support the bill would be awarded.  And Con MP Joy Smith's Foundation would get a chunk of that money too, with no pesky CRA audits I bet!

My suggestion: 

The Senate committee continues to hears presentations today.

In case you've missed it, go read @kwetoday's brief to the Senate standing committee on legal and constitutional affairs, here.  It exposes what a hollow, empty sham C36 really is. 

UPDATE: Plett the Plumber continues to blurt out loud the malevolent, sexist, gynophobic premise at the core of C36:

From this account of the second day of the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee hearings on C36:

Here's another report from that day from Star journalist Tonda MacCharles. It was lively!

Schrödinger's Shooter

Dear firearm owner. Thank you for reading.

First off, we will assume that you have good intentions. You own a firearm or many firearms because:

1) you hunt animals to provide your family with animal protein,
2) you are skilled and proficient with the use of these weapons and you go to firing ranges in the same way that golfers go to driving ranges,
3) you inherited these firearms from family members and you treasure the memories associated with these objects,
4) you are steeped in an ethnic and historical tradition of owning firearms to protect yourself and your family,
5) you are a US citizen who believes in second amendment rights,
6) you have voluntarily registered your firearm with a regulatory organization. Should your weapon(s) be stolen, you would report the theft to the police, and
7) you consciously remove bullets from the weapon; you lock the weapon and its ammunition in separate, secure containers to ensure the safety of your loved ones.

So far, so good. You seem to be a responsible human being, acutely aware that your firearms have the potential to be used to kill people or to commit a crime.

Now here's the challenge.

While there are firearm owners who willingly observe any of the above, there are organizations - well funded by weapons manufacturers - who lobby the US government to prevent it from regulating the possession or use of firearms in any way.

This allows irresponsible, dangerous, murderous, mentally unstable people to acquire firearms without any provisions for tracking or monitoring the arsenals they may be gathering.

This means if somebody reports murderous threats that an ex-partner, ex-employee, ex-associate has uttered against them, police have few or no records to verify if this individual has the means to carry them out.

In an odd twist recently, it appears mothers against Open Carry and the powerful NRA are moving towards a showdown; will the Second amendment triumph over motherhood?

And when people start openly carrying firearms in some US states under the guise of wanting to defend themselves against imagined or possible threats, we have to ask themselves:

Will this individual shoot us? We have no way of knowing if an individual holding a firearm is a responsible owner or someone about to deliberately commit murder.

Schrödinger's shooter.

Are we overreacting?

In 2010, guns took the lives of 31,076 Americans in homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings. This is the equivalent of more than 85 deaths each day and more than three deaths each hour.

73,505 Americans were treated in hospital emergency departments for non-fatal gunshot wounds in 2010.

Firearms were the third-leading cause of injury-related deaths nationwide in 2010, following poisoning and motor vehicle accidents.

Between 1955 and 1975, the Vietnam War killed over 58,000 American soldiers – less than the number of civilians killed with guns in the US in an average two-year period.

In the first seven years of the US-Iraq War, over 4,400 American soldiers were killed. Almost as many civilians are killed with guns in the US, however, every seven weeks.

Source.

You, the responsible firearm owner may think you don’t know anyone who would actually shoot and kill somebody or allow their firearms exploited this way but consider the sheer number of deaths from shootings that occur every year.

Fortunately, you’re a responsible firearm owner. We’ve established that. Now that you’re aware that there’s a problem, you are going to go out of your way to fix it, correct?

This does NOTHING to fix the problem, nor to indicate any goodwill and collaboration in preventing future mass shootings.  Who exactly, funds the Canadian National Firearms Association?  And how much did the weapons manufacturing industry pay Harper's Reform-Conservative-Evangelical party to destroy the long-gun registry?

The current state of firearms control in Canada, here.

Much gratitude to Shrödinger's Rapist, a brilliant blogpost that first developed this analogy with regard to a reasonable reticence that women may have when trusting men.

Manufactured outrage

It's what all bullies do.  Every single one.  

Whether serial intimate partner abuser or totalitarian politician.

Harper has made this particular Karl-Rove-perfected tactic the centre-piece of his Politburo PMO propaganda communications strategy.

Reframe whatever criticism that is directed at you as an *attack* upon yourself or your party.

Wildly exaggerate what was said; prevaricate outrageously.

Shrieeek loudly to drown out any objections.

Discredit whoever had the temerity to express the notion that the Emperor might be prancing about, nekkid and weenie-wagging at small children.

Demand an apology.

Use the manufactured outrage and putative victimhood to elicit support from acquaintances or your political base.

The Parti Québecois' spin doctors are attempting to deflect attention away from their crass veer to the rightwing corporate agenda by demanding an apology from Amir Khadir of Québec Solidaire, the only progressive political party currently active in Québec.

Khadir related his personal experiences in Iran when left-leaning progressive activists and militants joined forces with right-wing traditionalist folks, to oust US imperialism and invite a leadership that spoke to the needs of oppressed Iranians.

The rest of that history is known: Ayatollah Khomeini took power; he and his fundamentalist islamist entourage established an anti-democratic, repressive, totalitarian regime in Iran.

From what Khadir stated, the PQ propagandists spun a tale that claimed Pierre Karl Péladeau was compared to the Ayatollah.  

The intended criticism was likely directed at Pauline Marois and her party, but the shrieeek potential there was not as meaty for the spin doctors.

Delusional fabulations.  It's what bullies do.

Added: Rob and Doug Ford. They use manufactured outrage not only as a political strategy, but engage in it as though it were an Olympic event.  More examples forthcoming.  Stay tuned.

Fair - that is non-fraudulent - elections

Yesterday this retweet in Nancy LeBlanc's twitter stream caught my attention.

Like all politically aware and engaged Canadians, the blogging team at DJ! has been observing the CONtemptuous CPC maneuvers to pass their Unfair Elections Act, which the smarmy Poilièvre titled, with considerable malevolent double-speak from PMSHithead's PMO, the "Fair Reform Act".

So I turned to resolution 31 in the LPC convention program.  It's a long one, and advances this: 

... A truly independent, properly resourced Parliamentary Budget Officer;

A more effective Access-to-Information regime with stronger safeguards against political interference;

An impartial system to identify and eliminate the waste of tax-dollars on partisan advertising; Careful limitations on secret Committee proceedings, Omnibus Bills and Prorogation to avoid their misuse for the short-term partisan convenience of the government;

Adequate funding, investigative powers and enforcement authority to ensure Elections Canada can root out electoral fraud; ...

In short, the Liberals bringing this resolution forward hope that it acknowledges the harm and damage Harper's CPC government has wrought upon Parliamentary process, address it with specific actions to redress Con malfeasance, and inscribe it within their own party's mandate.

It's a tall order.  I don't know if media folks and bloggers are allowed to attend the discussions that accompany the presentation of resolutions, but I will certainly be reporting on how this one is received and whether it passes.

Note in the twit pic the presence of Fair Vote Canada, a non-partisan organization.  May this augur well for a unified and cohesive cooperative strategy by all opposition parties to rid the country of Harper's greedy grifters, fatuous felons, corporate criminals and sleazy kleptocrats.

About those CON-veeenient leaks...

Imagine it said in Preston Manning's voice.  CON-veeenient!

It's the only way to observe the onslaught of leaks and planted items that glutted the mainstream media this week.  If one were cynical, one might think that some were deliberately engineered to divert attention away from the MASSIVE Harper CPC attack on democracy — disingenuously called *Fair Reform Act* — by neutralizing and weakening the work Elections Canada does.  Some have called it the Conservative Amnesty Act since it will retroactively exculpate any election fraud engineered by the CPC.

Observe the 'who', the 'what', the 'how' and the 'when' of the following:

Exhibit A: It was predictable that the PMO would accommodate Harper's loathing for the LPC by devising a strategy to disrupt the Montreal convention with a range of smears and media-attention-grabbing tactics.

Exhibit B: Just one big, happy Regressive Conservative slash Reformatory family party! Well, except for Arthur Hamilton who is now living in the dog-house.

Exhibit C: Clearly, transparently and blatantly even, Harper Cons are exploiting publicly-funded Parliamentary resources to support their re-election bid. No accountability.

Exhibit D: As our blogging colleague Luna suggests, a critical backlash against the use of Laureen might be re-framed by the PMO, who would claim that she is being attacked, and then launch their own previously-crafted strategies to smear Catherine or Sophie, respectively Mulcair and Trudeau spouses.

Here is seasoned political journalist Susan Delacourt's take on the above leaks.

Exhibit E: This one may be gratuitous or part of an internal effort by Harper sycophants to discredit Jason Kenney who may be gunning for their leader's job.

Exhibit F: Glen McGregor presents the facts he has obtained, and raises questions about how and why this information has surfaced now.

Make of it what you will, but it seems to me that under Harper's direction, the PMO and the communications flunkies who crank out their Politburo propaganda are out to win. No prisoners taken. No mercy.  Just a craven need to crush their enemies, which includes Canadians who aren't onside with them.

UPDATE, February 17: It seems the Lt-Gen Leslie (retired) snowball packed around a sharp rock has become something of an avalanche. 

According to this news item, Con Minister Nicholson claims information about Leslie's $72,000 move costs was obtained through the Access to Information Act but CTV won't confirm that is correct.  Who's the more credible? 

Buh-bye Shelly, don't cry...

Juxtapose.

Harper government Cabinet Minister Shelly Glover is rightfully under scrutiny with regard to $1200 *donated* at a fundraising organized for the CPC, held at a private residence in her riding.

Groups from the Manitoba arts and culture community, who lobby Ottawa for money, were invited to a fundraiser last week on MP Shelly Glover’s behalf.
Federal rules say cabinet ministers can’t solicit money from anyone who may have lobbied or may lobby them in the future.
Glover and event organizers said the gathering was strictly to raise money for the party’s local riding association, but CTV News obtained information which suggests otherwise.[...]
"The majority of these people were actually people who were friends of mine or board members or people that have been involved with the Conservative Party,” Glover said.
But the invitation to the fundraiser obtained by CTV News paints a different picture.
"Invitees are primarily members of the cultural community in Winnipeg,” it said. "Shelly is interested in meeting with you and hearing your views."
CTV has confirmed representatives from the Manitoba Theatre Centre, Manitoba Opera and Winnipeg Art Gallery attended.[...]
The federal ethics commissioner is reviewing a request to look at the event. Opposition parties in Ottawa have filed complaints.
Glover wrote a letter to the ethics commissioner, letting that office know about the event and what steps she has taken to deal with the matter, including ordering the $1,200 be returned to donors.
Glover’s office said the minister did not know people from the arts and culture community would be at the party until she arrived.

Then, there's Harper's Israel junket, an over-the-top display of pandering and fundraising for which Stephen Lautens suggested the twitter hashtag "200schnorrers" - a term that means sponger, freeloader.

The crass, greedy opportunism came to its logical peak with this spectacle from CPC MP Mark Adler, and then this cringe-worthy performance from PMSHithead.

As Harper and his government crank up the chutzpah, malevolently destroying scientific libraries and arrogantly engaging in corrupt activities, one wonders where, if any, might the tipping point be?

Who will be sacrificed as an venal offering to the deities of the CPC fake accountability-and-transparence scam?

My bet is that when push comes to shove, Glover will go the way of Helena Guergis and Bev Oda because that's how the Harper's boys' club rolls. 

$1200 versus the millions the CPC hope to raise for their 2015 election campaign war funds.

Beyond Adler's mendacity, there were also stomach-churning photos of CPC dauphin Jason Kenney and his gynophobic buddies reveling in the testosterone-charged enclave of Jerusalem's West Wall.

A personal anecdote about Shelly Glover.  Last summer I traveled to Montreal on Via Rail. In the business class car sat the freshly appointed Heritage minister and a small entourage of husky men, two of whom looked and behaved like bodyguards.

Not a single person in that group used an electronic device during the whole trip. No cell phone, no tablet, no Blackberry, no laptop. Nothing.

It made me wonder what they knew, and that we now know...

A peace exhibition that highlights warmongers and some peace activism...

On Monday I posted this about the damage that Harper's CPC Con revisionists are about to wreak upon the Museum of Civilization now Canadian History.

On Thursday I toured Peace: the Exhibition at the War Museum.

It was Dr Lotta Hitschmanova's birthday - over 104 years ago; she had a small place in one of the vignettes that acknowledge her role as a post-WWII refugee to Canada, and her contributions to reconstruction work.

More about Lotta, whose voice and brilliant *branding* of the USC through her public service announcements on the CBC, is acutely remembered by people who grew up in the 1950s and 60s.

I found the exhibition to be superficial; the focus was on war and from my perspective, peace was presented as an occasional inconvenience to the all-important military industrial complex and weapons manufacture corporations.  The political machinations that enabled these business interests to thrive were given a shiny gloss and spin.

Since the perspective was Canadian, some of the politicians featured are: Diefenbaker, Pearson, Trudeau and astonishingly, Harper.  Or perhaps that was pathetically predictable.

Most of the graphic displays are modest in scale, reproductions of photographs, and documents, artifacts on display and so forth.  Not so for the two pictures of PMSHithead which are of course MASSIVE.

It was curiosity that drew me to this exhibition; I had heard much valid criticism of it, particularly with regard to the elements emphasized, and most relevant, all that was absent.  However, the curator for this exhibition surely deserves some recognition for her defense of the paltry statements in support of peace that survived what must have been grueling negociations with ideologically-driven, CON-staffed program committees.

Did I mention that the greatly admired participation by our Canadian troops in UN peace-keeping initiatives is given a minuscule place?  No surprise; that history doesn't jive with Harper's remake of Canada.

This review brings a thoughtful and positive perspective, reflecting upon the importance and the history of making peace instead of waging war.