ConCalls: Fraud, but No Punishment #RoboCon #cdnpoli UPDATED

The Federal Court found there was fraud in the 2011 federal election (duh), but decided the irregularities were not enough to justify calling byelections to let a fair election play out in each of the six challenged ridings.

Six contested election results stand but Federal Court finds evidence of robocalls fraud in 2011 election. Story soon.—
Glen McGregor (@glen_mcgregor) May 23, 2013

FUCK!

Updates likely…

UPDATE I:
The court by ruling there was a “concerted campaign” to defraud voters, has decided the Members of Parliament for those cheated out of a fair election. Votes have been denied to some Canadians twice now, first when they were tricked by malicious fraudsters backing the Conservative Party of Canada, and now again by the Federal Court for its refusal to uphold the intention of the law which is to make election fraud pointless because the benefactors of crime will not win.

Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley ruled that the calls “struck at the integrity of the electoral process by attempting to dissuade voters from casting ballots for their preferred candidates. This form of ‘voter suppression,’ was, until the 41st General Election, largely unknown in this country.”

The evidence points to “a concerted campaign by persons who had access to a database of voter information maintained by a political party,” Mosley writes[...]

The cheaters won in 2011. They are still winning. This is an outrage! The Federal Court is corrupted somehow! This continues the outrage of the Supreme Court decision regarding Etobicoke Centre.

“I am satisfied, however, that the most likely source of the information used to make the misleading calls was the CIMS database maintained and controlled by the CPC, accessed for that purpose by a person or persons currently unknown to this court.”

Mosely blamed CIMS, but said there was not enough evidence to finger RMG, RackNine, or even the CIMS owning CPC! The impotent Elections Canada investigation drags on behind closed doors for years, so we may never know what stones they left unturned. The guilty are getting away from the Federal Court. The DPP has charged only 1 person, not mentioned in this Federal Court ruling so far as I can tell.

Death of Finley, Fall of Duffy, Departure of Wallin #cdnpoli

There are still a few more shoes to drop in the cracking Conservative caucus, of that we can be sure.

Was the rapid change in the media’s (and public’s) perception of the Duffy residency scam suddenly stoked by the demise of Doug Finley in mid May? It seems like a remarkable coincidence that a central conspirator in the Conservative rise to power with the In & Out election fraud dies, then Nigel Wright who the DPP didn’t implicate in the scandal, even though the media did loosely, falls from apparent power in the PMO.

He’s yet to be accused of anything, but Stephen Harper’s new (Mar. 8, ’11) chief of staff is being dragged into a persistent controversy over whether the Conservatives deliberately exceeded spending limits in the 2006 election campaign.

Nigel Wright, who took over as the Prime Minister’s top aide in January, is listed in 2008 court documents that form part of the in-and-out scandal dogging the Tories.

An affidavit sworn by one of Elections Canada investigators identifies Mr. Wright as secretary for the Conservative Fund Canada during the period in question.
[...]
A senior official with the Harper government said Mr. Ignatieff was “reckless” in calling for Mr. Wright’s departure even though the Liberal couldn’t connect the aide to the advertising spending controversy.

Ignatieff would have saved the Conservatives some trouble, because Wright left in disgrace this week, after improperly gifting Duffy $90,000 to avoid scrutiny of an audit that was also being whitewashed by partisans in the Senate*.

How is Pamela Wallin, former CBC journalist, slipping under the media scorn radar right now? Is Duffy getting extra heat and attention because he’s taken a secret cheque with PMO agreement, to pay back stolen expenses, or because he is fat?

Is Wallin getting off the hook for also paying back money to avoid possessing public funds she was not eligible to claim, claiming obscene travel expenses, while living away from the jurisdiction she supposedly represents, because Toronto media is sympathetic to a previous host of The National? Or are they saving her to roast for later when Duffy is on his way to jail? Extend the pain for the Conservatives, and Harper, or let her get away?

Lafleche Loses Another Building: Flying Goose Inn

Another accidental fire in Lafleche last night, this one attributed initially to careless smoking (is there any other kind?). The Flying Goose Inn, the only bar and hotel in town, burned to the ground. Months ago, M.O.M, the bus station, also burned.

The hotel, a few weeks ago, in April.

Adding a little heartache to this story, it’s Lafleche’s 100th anniversary as a town, and Canada Day weekend is the celebration. Now there are fewer places for visitors to stay and visit in town, and there’s just another burned out lot.

Main St.

On January 10, 1984, I was present when the Lafleche Bumper To Bumper caught fire and burned down; The story I recently read in my Grandma’s journal entry for that day.

PM Puts Up Hand “Cheque Please!”

Harper hurried out of the country, and who could blame him? He had angry professional journalists on his tail, asking him questions that have no other true answer than to admit that a crime took place in the Prime Minister’s Office. His old friend Nigel Wright was under the CPC Bus, and Stephen Harper remained at the wheel, driving it over Mike “Loose Lips” Duffy at the same time Wright was hanging onto the front bumper before resigning himself to be chewed under the heavy Harper wheels of staffer sacrifice.

The non-existent Office of Public Prosecutions was busy not at work, not charging Wright with bribing Duffy with $90000 so as to get out of trouble that an audit bearing down on him was about to unleash in greater waves.

A Conservative government would institute an independent office of public prosecutions responsible for investigating criminal activity on Parliament Hill, party Leader Stephen Harper said Wednesday. [Nov. 30, 2005]

“I invite you to look forward to … a bold future where people are held responsible for their actions,” Harper said on the second day of campaigning for the Jan. 23 federal election.

Under current rules, Harper said, politicians have had too much say in how those involved are dealt with and how much money should be repaid.

“Conservatives believe as a basic principle that politicians should not be accountable to other politicians, that government should not be accountable to itself,” he said.

“A new Conservative government will ensure that decisions about criminal prosecution are independent of politicians and independent of politics.”

Government should not be accountable to itself? Hell, he’s done a bang-up job implementing that promise, because not only is this government not accountable to itself, it also escapes scrutiny of the RCMP, Elections Canada, the Head of State, and the professional snoozing media who still dismissively sounds like this:

@CBCTheNational Your question is satire, right?—
Paul Orlowski (@npdrifter) May 22, 2013

Um, I’m not sure “comments” can settle a gross ethical and legal violation of Senate rules, unless they were, “I accept responsibility, and I resign in the hope that the Crown prosecutor goes easy on me.”

.@jonkay it bothers me that #Duffy doesn't bother you that much. Senator taking $90000 hush money from PMO insiders? #cdnpoli #crime—
Saskboy K. (@saskboy) May 22, 2013

@pdmcleod I guess the RCMP don't have Twitter Or TV or print media. $90000 what? Duffy Wright who? Oh wait: @rcmpgrcpolice—
Saskboy K. (@saskboy) May 22, 2013

–
Hat tip to Nathan who liked this part best from 2005:

‘I invite you to look forward to … a bold future where people are held responsible for their actions.’ – Stephen Harper [2005]

"Anyone who wants to use public office for their own benefit should make other plans or, better yet, leave this room" – Harper. #cdnpoli #hw—
  (@rabbleca) May 21, 2013

@ValckeNDP Well, he said that anyone in this for personal gain should leave the room… #cdnpoli—
Stephen Lautens (@stephenlautens) May 21, 2013

DuffyGate Continues #cdnpoli

This whole Mike Duffy scandal isn’t new, but it is big news now, because further details came to light last week. We learned that Duffy was basically bribed by the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff in the Prime Minister’s Office, so an audit wouldn’t continue or look so bad for the Duffster Fraduster senator.

Will the Conservatives survive the month intact? Sixth Estate assumes so, but I’m hoping this straw might finally break a little “Nasty Party” back. The Liberals eventually came down after people assumed they were so corrupt due to Adscam that anything would be better. Well, the Conservatives were anything back then, but now they are the party with the corrupt Senators stealing money from taxpayers because they fudge where they are living on government documents to get cushy, powerful jobs, and hundreds of thousands in expensed perks.

Former Human Child GAP

Dear Former Human Child, CEO of the GAP,

When you were a child, you probably dreamed of enslaving poor Asian people so they would die tragically in building fires and collapses while doing your bidding? No? If not, then you’ve screwed up. Now that you are a human adult, your former human child is probably ashamed of the person you’ve become.

It may seem out of your power to do anything constructive now without letting someone down, but maybe you should start making yourself proud of your own actions, and the rest of us will start looking out for ourselves instead. We don’t need your adult human kind of help right now.

Sincerely,
John Klein
Canada

Harper Understood

Here’s Stephen Harper giving a description of the Canadian federal political system. It’s obvious that his blubbering since about not understanding something about how the Prime Minister has unchecked power, is a charade. His “coup” talk during the coalition agreement of 2008, was bogus, he knows Parliament selects the Prime Minister, not citizen voters.

Now he’s ordering unpaid checks, and is a political imbalance.

Do you think he knew about Wright’s cheque to Duffy, the Senator “buddy” and “fundraiser” he appointed?

On the surface, you can make a comparison between our political system and yours [America]. We have an executive, we have two legislative houses, and we have a Supreme Court.

However, our executive is the Queen, who doesn’t live here. Her representative is the Governor General, who is an appointed buddy of the Prime Minister.

Of our two legislative houses, the Senate, our upper house, is appointed, also by the Prime Minister, where he puts buddies, fundraisers and the like. So the Senate also is not very important in our political system.

And we have a Supreme Court, like yours, which, since we put a charter of rights in our constitution in 1982, is becoming increasingly arbitrary and important. It is also appointed by the Prime Minister. Unlike your Supreme Court, we have no ratification process.

So if you sort of remove three of the four elements, what you see is a system of checks and balances which quickly becomes a system that’s described as unpaid checks and political imbalances.

What we have is the House of Commons. The House of Commons, the bastion of the Prime Minister’s power, the body that selects the Prime Minister, is an elected body. I really emphasize this to you as an American group: It’s not like your House of Representatives. Don’t make that comparison.

What the House of Commons is really like is the United States electoral college. Imagine if the electoral college which selects your president once every four years were to continue sitting in Washington for the next four years. And imagine its having the same vote on every issue. That is how our political system operates.

In our election last Monday, the Liberal party won a majority of seats. The four opposition parties divided up the rest, with some very, very rough parity.

But the important thing to know is that this is how it will be until the Prime Minister calls the next election. The same majority vote on every issue. So if you ask me, “What’s the vote going to be on gun control?” or on the budget, we know already.

If any member of these political parties votes differently from his party on a particular issue, well, that will be national headline news. It’s really hard to believe. If any one member votes differently, it will be national headline news. I voted differently at least once from my party, and it was national headline news.

Harper also famously said the following, perhaps partly in jest. Probably he was serious, and hamming it up for the friendly crowd he was trying to flatter.

Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours [America], a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.

ADDED:

RT @RobertFife: Reporters booted from Tory caucus as they asked Stephen Harper to answer questions about Senate spending scandal. #cdnpoli—
CTV National News (@CTVNationalNews) May 21, 2013

MT @dgardner "This is your moment, CPC backbenchers: Are you Parliamentarians or the PM’s grunts?" — Rhetorical questions work? #cdnpoli—
Saskboy K. (@saskboy) May 21, 2013

Clearly @pmharper is all for accountability. Caucus pitch addressed nothing, media booted for asking questions then #PMSH ran away. #cdnpoli—
Kyle S. (@random_noise) May 21, 2013

Cycling In Regina Isn’t Always Easy

What’s it like for a Regina cyclist to go see a movie?

Besides homicidal/comical drivers (from Alberta),

there are flooded Multi Use Pathways,

and underpasses that are creeks.

Persist past those hazards, and there are gravelly “Shared” bike lanes with parked cars ready to give you the “door-prize”.

Can you see drivers being as patient and persistent as Regina’s cyclists? Despite the flooded dead-ends without detour signs, I made the 11km bike ride from the south west, to the north east in under an hour, so I could catch the latest “Star Trek Into Darkness” [10/10]. I’d highly recommend trying it. The film was great fun too. *rim shot*

Don’t Ask Me To Prounce This Anything But “Cool”

Poi spinning makes you look 100% cooler, even if you bash yourself in the face by accident.

Wright Quits, Wallin & Duffy Half-Quit, May Lashes the PM #cdnpoli

What dirt does Duffy have on the Prime Minister, that would have had him order his Chief of Staff to cut Mike Duffy a cheque for more than $90,000?

Mike #Duffy and Nancy Greene, #senators raising money for CPC. Corruption and sponsorship #cdnpoli #revolting. en: youtu.be/FJUCugE8ZZQ—
Susan (@SusanFelicity) May 19, 2013

It’s not this video with Duffy and climate change denier Greene-Raine fluffing the Olympics for partisan gain.

Is it this one that has a clue in it? Did the Prime Minister promise a journalist (Duffy) a Senate seat if he helped throw the election? Remember the unconventional airing of the do-overs that Dion did? That was Duffy that determined that damaging display of dialogue.

One question put to me yesterday, was of legitimacy Wallin, Braz Man, and Duffy have for remaining in the Senate at all, after the Prime Minister who put them there has caused or accepted their removal from the Conservative caucus. I would suggest that a Prime Minister who appoints, then fires partisans, to the Senate, calls into question their own legitimacy to govern. As it stands, we’re entering unheard of territory, and so far as I know, there’s nothing written in our Constitution about what to do. We’re writing that unwritten bit of our Constitution now by what we let this rogue Prime Minister get away with.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May said Sunday that, regardless of Wright’s resignation, important questions are still outstanding about why he would have offered his own money to save a floundering Duffy.

“Why would Nigel Wright do something that was so obviously wrong? Intuitively, it would make sense to ask ‘Did the prime minister ask him to do it?’ as opposed to ‘Did the prime minister know he did it?’”