Remember Teneycke's Snuffaluffagus hoax?

Alison at Creekside certainly does, and she lays it out. Excellent connection between the Con jobs repetitive dirty tricks.

Go read Creekside: Enbridge hearings hit with Snuffaluffagus hoax. Tout de suite!

"My job is to end ... politicians’ careers."

Think about that for a moment.

That was a Rovian statement, with all it implies of dirty tricks, amoral tactics, unlimited resources and murderous intent.

It was said by a guy who is the CEO of a *polling firm* - Campaign Research of course. It appears some legitimate pollsters are rousing themselves from their state of stupified complacency to investigate complaints against this little shit and his odious actions.

From polling methods described as “reprehensible” by the Commons Speaker, to some questionable polling in the federal and provincial elections, Canada’s public-opinion research industry has faced its share of controversy in the past year.

One big test case is looming immediately — an investigation by the Market Research Intelligence Association into the activities of the polling firm Campaign Research, which conducted a survey in the Montreal riding of Liberal MP Irwin Cotler that earned a slap from Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer.

If MRIA finds that the firm breached its standards — a charge that Campaign Research vigorously denies — this would be a first for the Canadian polling industry.

The call for stricter measures on how polls are conducted and reported is coming from some leading pollsters, who worry that the credibility of their business is getting dragged down by lax or controversial standards in Canada.

“I’m a little disgusted; no, make that a lot disgusted,” says Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos, who wrote an open letter to Canadian journalists last fall, warning of the growth of sketchy practices in political polling.

Too little, too late.

USian-Style Dirty Tricks

My goodness. Actual indictments for voter suppression.

Two top aides to former Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R) were indicted Friday for trying to suppress Democratic voter turnout by ordering misleading phone calls that discouraged voters from going to the polls. The Baltimore Sun reports that Paul Schurick, Ehrlich’s communications director, and Julius Henson, a longtime GOP operative, directed this deceptive robocall campaign targeting the state’s black voters during last year’s gubernatorial campaign.

(Erhlich lost anyway.)

Sound familiar?

Elections Canada investigates.

"Your concern about press reports of "robo-calls" providing false information regarding polling stations is of a different character. Your remarks will be considered in the context of an inquiry ongoing with regard to calls of this nature that have been reported to this office."

Well, if Merkin-style dirty-tricks are gonna come to Canada, let us hope for similar prosecutions here.

Yeah. Right.

Remind me, where are we with that In and Out Scandal?

Oh, yeah.

On February 24th, 2011, 4 senior Conservative Party members were charged in the In and Out Scandal under the Elections Canada Act with overspending over $1 million dollars in the 2006 election including allegations that Conservative election expense documents submitted to Elections Canada were "false or misleading" and attempted to fraudulently gain almost $1 million dollars in refunds from taxpayers. Senator Doug Finley, (the party's campaign director in 2006 and 2008, and the husband of Human Resources Development Minister Diane Finley), Senator Irving Gerstein, Michael Donison (former national party director) and Susan Kehoe (who has served as an interim party executive director) all face 3 months in jail, $1000 in fines or both.

The most important story of elxn41

First, the most important story isn't as *sexy* as some elements in the Ruth Ellen Brosseau saga.

By the way, it's important to note that she's not the first poteau elected to the House of Commons. A number of those were swept into Parliament by Mulroney's mammoth wave of new-elected Progressive Conservative MPs in 1984. I don't recall they were subjected to the same level of sustained scrutiny as she's been since her election.

So, the critical story is the increasing use of US-style political dirty tricks exploited before and during election campaigns. Excellent deconstructions of the Contempt Party's use of attack ads to plant negative images and narratives that might influence how electors view the Opposition leader were done here and here.

But it puzzles me that nobody in the purported *liberal* media has produced a thorough investigation of the MASSIVE amount of robo-calls deployed in specific ridings to deliberately irritate electors and to present false information.

It's been determined by tracing some of them to their source that most if not all originated with one US-based company. It is critical to establish who produced this carefully-crafted harassment campaign and how it was paid for.

Did #Contempt Party political operatives encourage supporters to fund this initiative and did they tell them to direct their financial contributions to a US-based company in order to evade the purview of Elections Canada?

Canadians want and need to know if this is the case.

Here's a worthy challenge, NDP & LPC! (update)

How about joining forces to investigate whether this Con tactic is legal in Canada?

At doors I canvassed I kept hearing certain stories about how I spent too much time in Africa, or that my voting presence in the House wasn’t too impressive. When I informed them that I only spent one week a year on that continent (Sudan), and that I take it on my holiday time over New Years and on my own dime, I could sense the hesitation in their voice. “Oh … that’s not what we heard when the Conservatives phoned us last night.” Something that hadn’t been an issue heretofore was suddenly looming large in the final days. It was frustrating, but I didn’t know who to talk to. It was only when the election was over that a good Conservative friend informed me that they had actually been utilizing a central office for phone calls and that none of them emanated from London itself. They had poured big money from afar into influencing my riding. What I had thought to be a local campaign had suddenly taken on national dimensions.

I should have figured it out earlier. While the opponents from the other parties were front and centre in the campaign, the Conservative candidate had been AWOL, appearing at only one televised debate in the entire five weeks. Instead, the Conservatives opted for phone calls and signs – no replacement for flesh and blood candidates, but they were looking to win from a distance.

From here.

There were also documented calls to voters in specific ridings, deliberately creating the impression they came from Elections Canada, telling people that locations of polls had been changed when in reality they had ^NOT.

Thus does democracy crumble. Investigating and bringing criminal charges requires a united front, as well as a well-funded legal commando strike force.

If the Contempt Party financed these dirty tricks, they should be held accountable. After all, aren't they allegedly the *Tough on Crime* party?

Update: The Waterloo Region Record, which covered the attempt by Con staffer Michael Sona to disrupt a legitimate special polling station in mid-April, has more about the robo-calls.

Tom Deligiannis is a political science instructor who lives in Guelph but teaches at the University of Western Ontario in London. He received an automated call early Monday morning.

“I was skeptical at first because I follow elections very closely. And it’s highly unlikely Elections Canada would call the day of the election to make a change like that,” he said. “I was pretty upset by it all, actually. It seems to be a blatant attempt to manipulate the vote in some way.”

Deligiannis said he filed a complaint with Elections Canada. Deligiannis said he would never fall for such a tactic, but others, like his 70-year-old mother who moved to Canada from Greece, just might.

“The message has the potential to sound legitimate to some people, at least on the face of it. There is a reason it’s done,” Deligiannis said of the tactic. “It can confuse elderly citizens or new Canadians who maybe aren’t familiar with Canada’s democratic process.”

The penalty for being found guilty of such illegal actions is a maximum fine of $1000. That's not going to hurt the Contempt Party much. They probably spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on these dirty tricks, across Canada, in target ridings which evades the scrutiny of Elections Canada, since that money is likely off their books. The companies who provided the service are based in the US and they won't tell anyone who paid the Cons' bills.

Harper got his majority; his ReformaTories are laughing all the way to the bank, where they'll cash in the rewards the tar sands industry will provide to them. *Ethical Oil*, anyone?

Too little, too late.

To: Liberal dickheads (happily not a MASSIVE number)

You know who you are. Yes, you, you, you & you in particular.

So now you're apologizing to Stéphane Dion? Betcha that makes Michael Ignatieff feel really, really good about his fling with you pricks.

And that blaming and screeching thing you're doing? So jejeune. So much like Andrew Breitbart and his acolyte James O'Keefe.

Grow up, get rid of those third testicles you individually and metaphorically acquired (testosterone poisoning can be toxic, particularly when there are waaaay too many alpha dogs in one room) and get a grip. All that bad kharma you directed towards the NDP has returned tenfold to you.

And an itsy-bitsy teensy-weensy word of advice. WK is neither a guru nor DA BOMB. He's more like un pétard mouillé actually.

With my deepest sympathy to Tribe39 & impolitical.

Muttart trail leads back to US dirty tricksters

No fresh scandal here, just excellent investigative work by Alison at Creekside.

Creekside: Patrick Muttart trail leads back to US dirty tricksters

And, as Red Tory points out, a brilliantly played little charade.

Smoking gun meets pêtard mouillé.

Smells like a Contempt rat to me.

Or it might be a BQ dirty trick, since the incumbent could lose his seat to NDP Boivin - who once held the riding of Gatineau for the Libs. These allegations against Boivin have been raised in the past and she has clearly stated that they are unfounded.

Montreal newspaper Le Devoir reported Tuesday that Boivin did not actually leave the [Liberal] party for ideological reasons as she has previously stated, but because she hired a woman to work in her office the Liberals say was her same-sex partner and then refused to acknowledge she had broken the rules. [...]

Boivin flatly denied the allegations, saying that she knows all the rules and she never broke them. “These anonymous sources should come out of the shadows and have the courage to defend these allegations,” Boivin said in a statement on Tuesday, where she also announced her intention to defend her integrity and give legal notice to Le Devoir and the journalist who wrote the story. [...]

NDP officials say that was always their understanding of why she joined their party, noting she had voted with them – and against the Liberals – on votes like the missile defense system and legislation concerning the right to strike. [...]

Boivin told a news conference in Gatineau on Tuesday that she has been consistent in saying no every time she has been asked whether she had hired a same-sex partner to work in her office, a question that came from both the Liberals and the NDP. Boivin noted that she gave the same answer to [Toronto] Star reporter Richard J. Brennan when he asked her about the rumour in the past.

Brennan has written previously about the BQ and his language suggests that he is not sympathetic to that party - nor to the NDP.

Le Devoir has been relentlessly investigating Contempt Party candidates for their affiliations to extreme rightwing and fundamentalist religious groups during this federal election. This may have led to pressure on the editorial board to "balance" this reporting by publishing something dodgy about an Opposition party's candidate, particularly one who might be endangering a BQ incumbent's prospects for re-election.

Canadian politics have shifted; hateful political tactics increasingly replicate the polarized ambiance in the US. We can thank the Contempt Party and its leader, Emperor Stevie Spiteful for importing these toxic substances.

At this point, I'm thinking that someone close to the BQ or the Cons is the source for this contemptible product of trash journalism. BTW, the ADQ, which has formed an alliance of convenience with the CPC and Alberta's Wild Rose Party is not known for supporting gay and lesbian human rights.

And also: Count on Norm Spector to get it right ... NOT!

Too: The NDP's knee-jerk response to the attack on their candidate is short-sighted and not very politically astute, imho.

Beleaguered by ReformaTories . . . and by Burglars

We've blogged about the beleaguered-by-ReformaTories human rights group Rights and Democracy before: here and here.

The peculiar story just got peculiarer.

The Globe and Mail is reporting that the group's Montreal offices were hit by burglars. A couple of lap-tops were stolen and the police are still investigating.

Hmmm. That's the second time today that the word 'Watergate' floated through my mind.

Earlier, I was reading JJ the Unrepentant's blog on the arrest of James O'Keefe. Who dat, you ask?

JJ quotes from the source:

A conservative activist who posed as a pimp to target the community-organizing group ACORN and the son of a federal prosecutor were among four people arrested by the FBI and accused of trying to interfere with phones at Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office.

Activist James O’Keefe, 25, was already in Landrieu’s New Orleans office Monday when Robert Flanagan and Joseph Basel, both 24, showed up claiming to be telephone repairmen, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s office said Tuesday. Letten says O’Keefe recorded the two with his cell phone.

In the comments, J.A. Baker draws our attention to his tweets on the matter.

One of them was 'Shallow Throat'. . .

Where did that illicit tape recording come from?

CTV News claims to "have learned" that the NDP and Bloc Quebecois have been holding "secret talks to form a coalition party" - even before Jim Flaherty laid his egg in Parliament last week - from an audio tape that was recorded by an unidentified "Conservative member".

Dimitri Soudas was interviewed by Radio-Canada. He accomplished the feat of sounding shocked yet unctuous as he waxed eloquent about the content of the audio tape, while remaining evasive as to how the recording was obtained.

Shall we take bets on the provenance of this tape? Dirty tricks from rank amateurs, à la Watergate? Or more ominously, was it obtained from a professional employed by the RCMP or CSIS, now moonlighting for the RepubliCons on the side?

Read more about this at bastard.logic. Stevie is slowly morphing into Tricky Dicky, aka Richard Millhouse Nixon.

Update: More at Red Tory, regarding the NDP response.

More update: Beijing York gives emphasis to the importance for the Progressive Coalition to stay focused and to avoid the bait, since Harper is already cornered.

The advantages of abortion: the Cons and C-484

On August 25th - shortly before calling this election - Stephen Harper shoved his low-profile Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson into the media spotlight:

to introduce a government-sanitized version of that bill to protect “pregnant
women” and not dwell on references to “unborn children”.

It was

Stevie and the Harpocrites’ way of removing the albatross that Ken Epp inadvertently hung around his party’s neck. No way the Cons were heading into a fall election, with freshly declared opposition to C-484 still breaking in the news.

One could call this tactic a political abortion; though C-484 had cleared its first and second reading, it was never allowed a complete gestation period. Yes folks, Stephen Harper aborted Bill C-484 in its symbolic ‘third trimester’ because it was politically expedient to do so.

Call them culture-killers, crime-fighters or mediabashers and they would happily cop a guilty plea, but being tagged as anti-abortion is the last label the Conservatives want plastered on their re-election resume. … While he described the need for the bill as “urgent”, Mr. Nicholson ducked repeated questions to produce statistics on the number of fetal assaults in Canada.

And if there was any doubt this move was election driven and not a legislative priority, he could not produce a text of the proposed bill, background documentation to explain the legislation or provide a date when, if ever, it would be introduced in the Commons. “We’re bringing forward a bill that makes a very clear statement on where this government stands,” was all he would say. Translation:
Nowhere near abortion.

MASSIVE public demonstrations against C-484 continue (5000 in Montréal); the aborted Bill has become a symbol for the secretive, prevaricating, manipulative and optics-controlling maneuvers of the Conservatives. Read more.

First posted at Birth Pangs.