— Musings —03.17.2011 06:04 PM
The face
…that sank 1,000 Tory Spring election ships.
Or, I guess that Liberal ad was pretty prescient, eh?
— Musings —03.17.2011 06:04 PM
…that sank 1,000 Tory Spring election ships.
Or, I guess that Liberal ad was pretty prescient, eh?
So whats supposed to happen?
Never mind. See it now.
Thank goodness we’ll have something to talk about other than stupid policy for the next couple of days.
That’s hilarious. Have to wonder if Steve is just acing out vicariously.
No, eh?
JEEZ NIOTHING EVER CHANGES IN TORY LAND
we had Gerda Munsinger in the 50’s; Schreiber in the 90’s and now another femme fatale in this era. I winder if Mr. Angry’s red neck tribe will think she’s cute and lovable.
I’m speechless…which is not to say I’m not grinning from ear to ear. Gotta love those strong Reformatory family values.
Priceless!
But there are better screenshots to be found out there still!
A hundred Bev Odas …
I don’t get it.
What am I missing?
Why did I just visit an escort’s old web site?
Will the Tory base finally start to to get upset about their own party’s sleaze? The Conservatives are getting into things that usually only happen to governments that have been around for a really long time. I don’t know how Conservatives can be happy with a government that acts like this one.
I’m sure they’ll take it lying down…
Warren needs a “like” button for comments like these! 🙂
“economic action!” …c’mon someone had to say it!;)
OK, I get it now too. I watched the APTN story. Here’s the link to it: http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2011/03/17/former-harper-advisor-had-deal-with-escort-on-first-nations-water-deals-document/
As our friend JC used to say, “Bye-bye Steve”…
Wow! All that tells me is that the Conservatives aren’t the squares we make them out to be. 🙂
More busty hookers?
I don’t see it! WTF is this about?
Bruce Carson worked for Mulroney, Joe Clark and PMSH in the 2006 election- 2008, and one month in 2009.
The women is Carson’s fiancee, and Carson may have broken laws in the Accountability Act.
RCMP was called in by Harper to see if there are grounds for an investigation.
http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2011/03/17/former-harper-advisor-had-deal-with-escort-on-first-nations-water-deals-document/
Un huh.
Sure, Wilson, nice attempt to distance yourselves, but afraid your collective arms aren’t long enough to push him under the bus w/o getting splashed yourselves.
Arguably, he was STILL working for PMSH until just a few days ago, since the U of C- affiliated ‘AB Water & NRG is Clean, Clean, Clean’ PR tank he was heading up recently got $15-M from the feds right when he transferred from the PMO to there (which is why he felt compelled to resign from it as soon as the investigation began).
And he was explicitly brought in a year ago as a Mr. Fix-It (or ‘The Mechanic,’ as he calls himself,* as he was a couple years earlier, for when Rona Ambrose was flailing as Enviro Minister**) to earn his keep in that role, to figure out how to out-fox the critics of the, er, Bitumen Sands, to help keep PMSH’s oil buddies in the black. http://urlm.in/hiqn
* http://urlm.in/hiql
** http://urlm.in/hiqm
p.s., Wilson, about that fiancee:
even tho’ some media reports that the young lady fronting the questionable water filtration contracts is no longer IN the escort business,
acc. to this listing (link helpfully provided by Bourque last night), she IS, and is still available, for $260 an hour
http://www.ottawaescorts.me/listing-leanna-7.html
and here’s a fairly explicit explanation of one of her main range of services (GFE):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girlfriend_experience
I wonder if this service was inspired by Dick Morris. He treated call girls like dates.
Nevermind, I got it
It’s a shame — literally — that it has to come to this, but at least this story will pull the rug from under a whole crop of CPC shills & apologists in the punditocracy who’ve been putting out scores of columns and talking head appearances over the past few weeks discounting the controversies to date as mere procedural matters or ‘scandalettes,’ at best, which the public isn’t and indeed shouldn’t be concerned about without salacious elements like this.
E.g., Tasha Kheiriddin http://urlm.in/hins or
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/sensibilities/4439705/story.html
Well, careful what you wish for, oh, cynical, scornful, fellow-betrayers of our Canadian Parliamentary democracy: it’s here.
Gord misses the point, as usual. I’m not desperate for it to be more… the media was, or pretended to be…
As I said, they kept doing a Paul Hogan, Scandal-dial Dundee impression (That’s not a knife… THIS is a knife’):
comparing Odagate etc to Italy’s bad-boy consorting with teenage strippers saga, saying, pish-posh, without that missing ingredient to seal the deal, there’s just nothing to see, here… move along, move along.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/02/19/george-jonas-italy-gets-underage-prostitues-we-get-funding-scandals/
But now there is: a Sunshine girl for all the media to catch the Timmy’s eyeballs with.
It’s pretty sad if that’s what it takes for cynical, lazy reporters or the public to actually sit up and notice, but if that’s what it takes: well, here it is, it’s been served on a silver platter.
Is that the same as a lazy tory supporter,you, who just puts out the party line ad nauseum
W,
Can you post this? I ask for so little. It will give all a break from the shit in the world….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY&feature=related
Warmest regards,
D.
Nice break thanks Dom. 🙂
I think that those guys would do a much better job in the HOUSE than the current Gov.
Warren=Gypsy-Warrior-Grit-Punk-Prophet.
All thanks are for you – NEVER close this site unless YOU are PM.
Respect always,
D.
on second thought – once you are PM, just drop all moderation – them we will truly live in a Liberal democracy 🙂
Yikes! Perhaps a NSFW warning?
Yes, please! Heh.
Isn’t she carson’s fiancee or wife now? I wonder how they met. 😉
Meh. Harper called in the RCMP – he has that leg to stand on. I’m not getting my hopes up…
Thank god. Something that’s easy to get across in a 1 second sound bite and poignant enough to make even the soft tories squirm. Now the Libs and everyone else has to start hitting, hitting hard every day, and not stop.
As a note, the captcha code for this posting was a very fitting “FKUP”. No joke! 😀
Why was it that Carson left the PMO in the first place? Wasn’t he quoted in Harperland? I don’t have my copy with me at the moment so I can’t check.
Love the site, but mind throwing up a NSFW next time?
If every minister in every government in this country, because some former employee/bureaucrat played the “personal friend of mine” card for whatever reasons, therefore was obligated to fall on his sword, there wouldn’t be a politician left standing anywhere. How is Harper, or anyone else, somehow responsible for the indiscretions of people who seek to exploit previous relationships/employment?
But of course I’m just being naive, for as we all innately understand, politics is first and foremost a bloodsport in which truth, rationality, and common sense are the preoccupation of fools.
Hebert had to wonder just exactly what the opposition was trying to accomplish with its ridiculously overblown theatrics in the committee hearings of the last couple days. On At Issue last night referring to this wild-eyed, holier-than-thou rhetoric, Ditchburn even used the term “garbage”.
You know why fewer and fewer well qualified and good people even muse about entering politics any more? Because who needs or wants to subject themselves to this endlessly idiotic crap???
All of it spoon fed by an MSM in nine second soundbites, intended context be damned, to consumers of “news (we think) you need to know” with about the same degree of regard for intelligence one can expect from the latest unbelievable flaky reality show du jour…generously speaking.
I can’t any more even stand an hour of Power & Politics or Power Play versions of let’s-all-slam-the-government-for-your-amusement-while-we-collectively-frown-in-a-concerned-manner. Or let’s-hear-what-a-Conservative-has-to-say-while-at-least-two-lefties-feign-indignant-outrage-as-they-hyperventilate-at-the-top-of-their-lungs-so-he-can’t-get-a-word-in-edgewise.
Remember the good ol’ days when the broadcasters actually demonstrated some respect for the political process, politicians and the electorate by sitting down and having a serious and intelligent one-on-one conversation with an leader or MP that might even last…yes, amazingly enough…a full half hour!!! These days, Mansbridge puts in ten minutes with the PM, and he’ll probably end up getting a fricking Genie award for it.
And when the bottom finally rots right out of our democracy, no doubt all the usual suspects will be front and center, reliably heaping plausible denial upon themselves, as they stare into the camera and state, “Gee, who saw that coming, eh?”
There’s some truth in this essay of yours, but most of the deficiencies are w/r/t the media, for which there are several explanations: concentrated, corporate-minded ownership; reduced staff & resources; increased competition; decreased audience – esp. paying audience.
Disagree w. your characterization of the political shows, tho’: it’s mostly Conservative-ly inclined pundits AND hosts letting the govt’s talking pts. go out unchecked, and mocking the critics’ points as much ado about nothing, and not AT ALL like that terrible adscam….
But the point about Carson is that this wasn’t like (just one of) the other CPC lobbying scandals going on this year, where the MP could plausibly say ‘I had no idea that this trusted aide would go rogue’ (MP Kelly Block’s staffer Russell Ullyatt who leaked the pre-budget consultation documents to lobbying firms he was trying to land work with; latest update at http://urlm.in/hiqx )
No, in this case, there IS no plausible deniability, since he in fact HAS a criminal record and was disbarred as a lawyer for questionable activities, and:
“Carson’s recruiters knew of PMO aide’s criminal past”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/03/18/calgary-carson-folo-criminal-record-hired.html
And one of the hallmarks of a corrupt government is the company it keeps.
(And another is its degree of hypocrisy: tough against crime, down on pardons, lock them up for life… unless they can help the government, then hire them, and get them good gigs & gov’t contracts thereafter.)
Gord, you’re Rush Limbaugh influence is showing.
The “fiscal crisis” is a result of tax cuts being the favourite political football of all teams for the past decade or so. There is a revenue problem, not a spending problem. Recently even one of W. Bush’s former advisors said the USA is not collecting enough revenue to pay for the operations of the federal government. Voters or at least some voters may buy into the hoax about reducing the size of government but it is analogous to calling for the leeches to heal someone already suffering from anemia.
Oh, and by the way, the LPC already made the tough cuts during the Chretien/Martin years and did bring the deficit under control. They had to clean up the fiscal mess left by a previous Conservative government. It didn’t take the current Conservative government very long to blow all of those efforts away. To use one of your words where does this “meme” come from, the one that regards the “Harper Government” or any conservatives for that matter as anything remotely like even a reasonable facimile of competent fiscal managers?
Several points here, Ted, you seem to conveniently overlook…
a) Yes, Martin got rid of the deficit. However, somewhere in CBC’s archives is a video from 1994 of him telling Preston Manning and the RPC that, were he to eliminate the deficit as they wanted, it would financially ruin the country. No, I’m not making this up. Further, they did it by first backing out of their promise to eliminate the dreaded GST, which turned out to be an indispensable cash cow for them, and secondly they offloaded a great deal of it onto the provinces by slashing healthcare funding. (Don’t even get me started on how they savaged DND, starting with the SeaKing fiasco…)
b) That would be the GST initiated by the Mulroney government to get government revenues up in order to deal with massive deficits…you know, the massive deficits that started with the Trudeau Liberals.
c) Whatever deficits this government racked up in dealing with this global financial/economic meltdown, does anyone doubt for even an instant that it still would pale in comparison the kind of spending a Coalition of the Damned would have incurred in order to keep both the Dippers and the BLOC from pulling the pin on the whole works???
Anyway…
Given the LPC’s position on corporate taxes, I have to admit that lately I find myself immensely enjoying interviews with notable Liberals such as John Manley and Frank McKenna.
You know?
There might be a blog, somewhere, who cares even just a little about what you have to say about Obama and global economic developments. But not this one. Life’s too short. If we want benighted neocon blow-hardery, we can just tune in to Fox ‘News’; no one needs your warmed-over versions. No more beans, please.
It is my opinion as well Gord.
I will give Al in Cranbrook credit for one thing: the Chantal Hebert article from (that well-known CPC House Organ) the Toronto Star is worth a read. If Hebert (who IMO is one of Canada’s top journos) is pointing stuff like that out, LPC members and supporters really ought to listen. Or is Chantal a Conbot now?
Chantal’s article was spot on. It’s conclusions may well be overtaken by events, if as Warren is currently suggesting more Carson “Vicious Torpedos of Truth”, come to light. Particularly if there are any records (paper or electronic) of a meeting with Harper.
Poor poor Conservatives. Those mean old lefties are ganging up on them every where these days and they are just so… just so, you know……vulnerable
“The federal debt is set to hit a historic high of $562.9 billion early Friday morning – wiping out 11 years of debt repayment prior to the recession”, (Montreal Gazette)
So, besides revealing that they are not the “principled party” providing “clean accountable government” that they sell themselves to be, the Cons are pretty lousy at managing the economy as well. Looks like the “Big Lie” at the core of the Conservative image has been exposed. They really are incompetent.
First of all, calling others “uninformed” is the type of ad hominem you purport to deplore. You can submit a response without name calling. For your “information” the Cons had started Canada into a structural deficit even before the stimulus spending. The foolish GST cuts were partly behind that. Even Mulroney said it may be good politics but it’s bad economics. Further to that, the GST cuts were deceitful, the month the GST went down by 1%, the income tax deducted on paychecks went up 1%, a reversal of the more sensible income tax cuts brought in by the Liberal government under Paul Martin. Smoke and mirrors and Conservative BS. Only two kinds of people vote Conservative, millionaires and suckers.
Oh, and lest I be accused of name calling myself, I am assuming you are in the millionaire category, thus supporting conservatism out of self interest, not delusion.
Eh, looks like the cons have pink lips of their own to worry about now..
On the one hand, this settles the longstanding debate over whether or not anyone, anywhere would ever willingly have sex with a Reformer.
Now we just have to wonder if anyone would do it free.
I tried that for free in the 1990’s. We had I just coalesced when the sneering and the innuendo started. Everything about what I was doing was questioned and derided, the false accusations came quicker and quicker. My motives were vilified and my actions were belittled, especially in comparison to some character whose praises were hollered in my ear, faster and faster, and then, just at the end, the name of that other character was chanted in my ear…
This will most likely end up like the Jaffer investigation with no charges and more interest in the wife/fiancee than the ex-staffer/MP. There may be a bit of blowback on Indian Affairs Minister Duncan, and his staffers, but likely not the PM.
The key actor in this whole drama may be Ms.McPherson’s mother who seems to have been trying to set up her daughter in a new line of work. Mr. Carson looks like a lovesick puppy out to please his paramour and her family.
I do expect there are many more ex staffers and retired MP’s who are doing the same thing as these two but just covering their tracks better.
The funniest thing I’ve seen so far in this saga is Tom Lukiwski defending the PM by saying that the Liberals had an open door policy between ex -staffers and MPs and the government when they were in power. That may be true but it’s irrelevant as it was legal then. It’s not now, thanks to the CPC’s Accountability Act. They probably thought they would never get caught in there own net.
Warren,
It would be very helpful to your readers if you posted “NSFW” beside links like this. That really was not appropriate to be clicking in work, around kids, etc.
Thanks.
Maybe I?m missing something, but this is the ?law and order? government, the ?family values? government, hiring an old codger with a known criminal history as Harper?s top aid, whose girlfriend is a former prostitute young enough to be his grand daughter. Sure, Carson got a pardon ? he could afford to pay for it working for the PM. Ordinary Canadians convicted of minor crimes aren?t so lucky, given changes the Conservatives are making to pardons: “It’s not the state’s business to be in the forgiveness business,” Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said…”The current system of pardons implies that what the person did is somehow OK, or is forgiven or that the harm done has somehow disappeared. Our government disagrees?.
And what about the clean drinking water issue? What kind of ?services? would a prostitute be providing for a water filtration system? And at whose expense? Would the potential millions (20% of sales) Carson’s call girl could make through her ?services? be skimmed off the top of clean water for First Nations peoples?
Discovered this earlier and immediately thought of Tea Party Tulk and the rest of the fresh crop of fruit loops.
Even Bill O’ is having a hard time with this one..lol Li’l Orphan Annie on why radiation is good fer ya Joey..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXFUUGeV1DI
If one of the Tea Party darlings told you that it was good to get your drinking water from the top of a septic tank because the bacteria enhanced digestion, you and the other ideologues would see value in the advice.
Do I have the time line right?
First, APTN investigates, does its interviews:
Second, APTN lets the PMO know what it has found out;
Third, PMO asks the RCMP to investigate.
You may have the big picture right but you miss the important detail that Carson is a disbarred lawyer who was convicted of fraud and is, or has been, a Tory fixer.
And here’s me thinking medical isotopes were sexy…