— Musings —07.20.2011 08:09 AM
Citizen columnist: Hudak is “tough on logic, tough on your wallet”
…and he’s still a gutless, misleading, waffler:
Stop spending our tax money on unnecessary measures.
— Musings —07.20.2011 08:09 AM
…and he’s still a gutless, misleading, waffler:
Stop spending our tax money on unnecessary measures.
…getting a little sick of the slick framing of this issue. “Oh, we don’t have a problem with people that are pro-life, its just that he’s being so gutless”.
Please.
The problem is that he’s pro life, any knob can see that. If he had signed a pro choice petition, and then said that he ‘may have’ signed a pro choice petition, there would be no discussion.
I don’t agree with the petition he signed (and the fact that i feel the need to say that further supports my point), but the idea that this is ALL about him being gutless or deceitful, is gutless and deceitful.
Its just a nice little side benefit to the true political prize: labeling him as pro life.
And we shouldn’t know whether the Premier of Ontario is pro-life? I kind of want to know his stand on that issue, as does everyone else. He isn’t telling people because he knows it is politically unsellable, but people have a right to know before they vote for him because it could impact a whole range of decision-making on his part. He is trying to have it both ways by supporting pro-life and trying to keep pro-choice confused.
I do have a problem with pro-life, because I’m pro-choice. However, that isn’t why I think he should tell everyone… I think he should tell everyone because voters have a right to know.
who says you shouldn’t know? i resent the witch hunt, and i resent the witch hunt from both sides of the fence.
i may not vote for dalton, but i don’t think his pro choice stance means he’s looking to open up clinics in high schools.
i may not vote for hudak, but i don’t think his pro life stance means he’s going to start throwing woman and doctors into jail.
people can use this as a litmus test if they want. it’s their vote.
we have far more important things to discuss, but whatever. Get the pitchforks out.
The problem is that he has, in the past, said that he is in favour of defunding abortion. Dalton has never said he would put clinics in high schools.
I just think it would be easier if he came out and said that he is pro-life, but that he is not interested in that type of policy.
I do think it can become a bit of a witch hunt, but I also think he would be better off just answering the questions…
How about the old chestnut…………tories are liars and liars are tories
That sounds rather accurate.
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/07/19/dalton-mcguintys-liberals-smear-out-of-fear
The liar thing will not work any more either because most folks think that all politicians are liars…..kind of a pre-requisite but it no longer phases voters in the way it once did.
Same with the abortion issue as Blizzard writes.
There’s a definite disconnect taking place between what the public cares about and what politicos think they care about…and it’s going to hurt in October. We might be surprised once again.
Vacation time! Yahoo! Checking out and I’m glad to leave the blogs behind.
Go have a great vacation.
By the time you return, we’ll have driven Hudak into the lake!
you too.
You’re just doing your job my friend.
Do you think an honest politician would ever stand a chance at being elected if he were truly “honest”?
I have my doubts.
bye
Watch the movie The Invention of Lying. Based on that, my answer is no.
Hudak Conservatives: Leading the way to the Nineteeth Century!
Still more revelations about Liberal MPPs who are anti-abortion fanatics. Now it turns out that Lou Rinaldi the LIBERAL MPP from Belleville cut the ribbon at the opening of a so-called pregnancy counselling centre in Belleville (these are actually places where religious freaks try to coerce women into NOT having an abortion).
“A ribbon cutting was held at the site on June 8 with certificates presented by MPP Lou Rinaldi and Mayor John Williams. Board Chair Virginia DeVries opened with a prayer and said she hoped this centre would offer a long-term role working with service providers in the community. “It is important for the quality of life In Quinte West.”
MPP Lou Rinaldi said sometimes people need a little push. “Thank you for doing it in a Christian way,” he said.”
I think its about time that McGuinty proved his total support for abortion rights by expelling these anti-abortion freaks from the Liberal caucus and making it clear that anyone anti-choice is NOT welcome as a Liberal candidate. He should be held to the same standard that he wants Hudak held to. (btw: if you really care about a woman’s right to choose – the NDP is 1000% unswervingly pro-choice and makes no bones about it – the choice is yours!)
Thank you, NDP Staffer Too Gutless To Use Real Name.
You sound confused. Let’s make it clear for you.
The issue isn’t pro-life or pro-choice. You can be either, bona fide, and be a good person.
The issue is truthfulness. On this issue, as others, Hudak is a liar. He tells pro-lifers he’ll “defund” abortion, and he tells pro-choicers that they shouldn’t worry, it isn’t a “priority” for him.
Your claims, meanwhile, are just as dishonest.
Here’s a quick recap, that took one minute to put together:
1. NDP MP Bev Desjarlais – anti-abortion, anti-equal marriage
2. NDP MP Tony Martin – attends pro-life rallies
3. NDP candidate Tony Gorman – responds “pro-life” to pro-life to questionnaires, etc.
All of these people are entitled to this view. What they aren’t entitled to be is full of shit.
Like you and Hudak are.
Unfortunately, I don’t think waffling on abortion is going to matter.
Hudak is ahead by double digits, apparently– he looks like a pleasant, nice, non-threatening guy and he isn’t Dalton McGinty and he has a nice-looking family and his little girl was ill. This will likely be enough for today’s voters, I’m afraid.
And I thought I was cynical…
As Lily Tomlin says, no matter how cynical I get, I just can’t keep up.
Political Polls out themselves as worthless
OTTAWA – Canada’s notoriously competitive pollsters have some surprisingly uniform advice about the parade of confusing and conflicting numbers they’re about to toss at voters ahead of a possible spring election:
Take political horse race polls with a small boulder of salt.
“Pay attention if you want to but, frankly, they don’t really mean anything,” sums up Andre Turcotte, a pollster and communications professsor at Carleton University.
He has even more pointed advice for news organizations that breathlessly report minor fluctuations in polling numbers: “You should really consider what is the basis for your addiction and maybe enter a ten-step program.”
And for fellow pollsters who provide the almost daily fix for media junkies: “I think pollsters should reflect on what this does to our industry. It cheapens it.”
Turcotte’s blunt assessment is widely shared by fellow pollsters, including those who help feed the media addiction to political horse race numbers.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/938345–election-polls-are-fun-but-they-don-t-mean-a-thing-pollsters
Point 8:25 in the video:
Peter Mansbridge on CBC discusses story of the year: worthless polls
http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/atissue/story/2011/02/17/thenational-atissue-170211.html
We invited Allan Gregg from Harris Decima (and the At Issue Panel on The National) and Paul Adams, assistant professor at the Carleton school of journalism. Adams covered Parliament Hill for the CBC and The Globe and Mail. He also worked for EKOS Research. Here’s that conversation:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2011/02/on-the-house-how-reliable-are-polls.html
???????????
Don’t worry, Warren has got his boy his winning strategy now: federal politics is dominated by Westerners and Quebecers, McGuinty says. Time to put those bastards in their place!
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1027214–mcguinty-talks-tough-on-eve-of-premiers-conference?bn=1
Never mind that McGuinty’s claim is factually inaccurate (the math doesn’t add up): playing to xenophobic prejudices won him the last election, so maybe it’ll win him this one?
Memo to all the pro life / anti SSM folks out there: when Tories show up at your church, sign petitions and say things like “we are with you” etc…. they are all lying, scumbag, pieces of shit. Each and every one of them. You are just easy lawn sign locations.
And stop giving them money – you are being played for suckers.
Name one time Tories enacted the “hidden agenda” that the left accuse them of. The reason the left uses the tactic is that the “hidden agenda” is so powerful and scary. And that is why the right will never enact it here. To do so would force your entire political movement to the back burner for YEARS. It is a move of desperation. Lorne Calvert did in in SK. He lost ad was proven wrong. Paul Martin did it in 06 and the same thing happened. This time, however, it is different! Surely! Even though Hudak has said that he won’t defund abortion (a position the exact same as Harper and SK’s Brad Wall) you might as well pillory him, running on the politics of fear.
For a real peak at how desperate Dalton is, look at his comments about the East subsidizing the west’s energy production, and his recent grandstanding re: the Premier’s conference. In a desperate bid to look like he is standing for something he is going to abandon Ontario’s tradition of being the moderate, sensible voice that puts national unity first. Taking campaign tricks from Harper on character smearing, intergovernmental relations advice from Quebec, Newfoundland and Alberta, and hidden agenda fear mongering from a string of desperatation moves by leaders on their way out the door.
No wonder the polls look so bad.
Hidden agendas/policies:
Mulroney:
*Free trade
*Patronage (after pounding Turner senseless in the debate, he went on to set patronage appointment records)
Harper:
*Income fund taxation (after he promised not to)
*Deficit increase
*Openness/accountability pledge (the federal government MPs/bureaucracy has never been so muzzled)
*Elected Senate
Only the tip of the iceberg …
To my way of thinking, that’s not really “hidden agenda” stuff — it’s promise-breaking.
I realize Mulroney reversed his original (pre-PM) position on Free Trade, but to be fair, he did subsequently campaign specifically on a promise to enact it (1988 election), and the FTA was THE ballot issue in that election. So while I have my problems with Mulroney, having a “hidden agenda” wasn’t really one of them.
The “hidden agenda” charge usually relates to a centre-right party hiding a radical (especially so-con) program and then later implementing it. The stuff you’ve listed for Harper hardly fits that description — rasing/imposing taxes and implementing a huge stimulus spending program? Sounds more like the hidden agenda of the NDP. Again, I think Harper is far more open to the charge of promise-breaking.
The Harper “hidden agenda” is yet to come, Doc…..first he had to get his majority govt…..that accomplished, I now await the payback to the religious right……
“Be as silent as snakes” said Preston Manning…..its the one tenet of Presto’s that Harper has followed to the letter……and as stated on here before, if these things do not come to pass, I
will apologize personally to every supporter of the Conservative Party that posts here…..
Yes, in the immortal words of Marge Simpson, “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
(Trivia challenge: see if you can name the episode)
Name one time Tories enacted the “hidden agenda” that the left accuse them of.
Mike Harris and the Common Sense revolution. There were promises in the 1995 election that there wouldn’t be cuts to health care.
“[E]very dollar we save by cutting overhead or by bringing in the best new management techniques and thinking will be reinvested in health care to improve services to patients”
In the end, there were cuts to hospitals and nurses were laid off.
Oddly too, Mike Harris was endorsed by members Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation at one time too….
Federally, immigration is down by 25%.
“Name one time…”
Well, maybe it’s just coincidence, but here are two things this socially conservative’s CPC gov’t’s line departments have quietly decided to do over the past couple years, which both hit the news today;
both seemingly intended to shore up its favoured ‘Leave it to Beaver’ 50s conception of the nuclear family:
1) we can’t go on hearing about those failure rates in marriage, now, can we, so let’s have StatCan stop tracking it:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1027273–statistics-canada-to-stop-tracking-divorce-rates
2) and, just like VP Dan Quayle’s PR war against TV’s single mom Murphy Brown, albeit a bit in reverse…
Revenue Canada has taken upon itself to decide that single dads shouldn’t go on being recognized as the caregiving single dads and be the one to receive the Child Benefit cheques if they happen to get together with a new common-law partner after their split up… once CRA gets wind of it, that new partner (if they’re a woman) is now presumed to be the new primary caregiver and they’ll cut off the cheques to the dad and the new partner will have to reapply to get those benefits (even if she decides to keep the money for herself, tee hee).
(this was on CBC news world today cuz someone’s contesting that, but I don’t have a link for the story, but the CRA’s presumption of the female as the primary caregiver is noted in these two docs:
http://www.cba.org/CBA/newsletters-sections/pdf/02-10-family_3.pdf
http://www.prdtax.com/pdf/t4114-07_ctb.pdf
Im surprised they dont require her to be barefoot and pregnant too……
Disturbing. If the guy’s the caretaker, he should get the cheque.
You seem confused – reread those links you posted.
you talkin’ to me?
I told you my source — a breaking story on CBCnews that wasn’t up yet — and noted that, in the meantime, the older legal sources in my link do reference the CRA’s ‘presumption of the female as the primary policy’ underlying it.
anyway, a few hours later, it went up:
“An Ottawa-area father who raised two children on his own for eight years claims the Canada Revenue Agency stripped him of child tax benefits after he moved in with a common-law spouse… [to whom] the benefits would be transferred….”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/07/20/ottawa-father-benefits.html
Not sticking:
“Tim Who-Dat?”
“Flat Tim”
“Reckless Rookies”
“Fratboy Tim”
“Tim’s a Liar”
“Weaselus Whatever-us”
Funny-looking-not-ready-to-govern-pictures of Hudak
Sticking:
“The Taxman”
McGuinty not brave enough to appear in Liberal ads
Houston….we have a problem.
sticking with it, daily, nevertheless, and serving as his…. Ha! … free focus group while WK test drives things he gets paid for… surly Cons like R2P2.
Charlatans are always exposed, and this one is no different. MounTIMbank Hudak will be defeated.
A small point, but one that does offer clarity to the some of the observations being made by the Liberal suppoters here regarding sexual offenders and a falling crime rate.
Police reported more than 22,000 sexual assaults in 2010. This represented an increase of 5% in the rate since 2009, the first increase in sexual assault since 2005. Police reported just over 437,000 violent incidents in 2010, about 7,200 fewer than in the previous year. Violent crimes accounted for just over 1 in 5 offences.
One would have thought that the Liberals in Ontario would wish to know where their share of those individuals who committed the 437,000 violent crimes are and what they are doing and where they are doing it.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/110721/dq110721b-eng.htm
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/110721/t110721b1-eng.htm
except, um, a GPS ankle bracelet doesn’t tell you what they’re doing, at all, Dim.Bulb…. just where they are (assuming it works).
Which, um, many cell phones do these days, as well… for free.
So, what, are you proposing that we monitor everyone who’s ever been written up for violence 24/7, on the taxpayer’s dime, for the rest of their life, even after they’ve served their time?
You’d think Conservatives would want to be fiscally prudent, and to respect civil liberties.
dimbulb, right.
Stop and think Forest, which I do understand is difficult for the Liberals … what are the chances of a individual committing a crime, when the jewelry he is wearing puts him at the site of the crime – even a Liberal would not be that stupid to commit that crime although your comment about GPS “assuming it works” does bring that into doubt
P.s., as usual, before you start throwing alarming statistics around, you might want to, um, READ their original source first to understand their import and context:
“Police reported over 22,000 sexual assaults in 2010, the vast majority (97%) of which were classified as level 1, the least serious of the three forms of sexual assault (Table 4).
For the first time since 2005, police reported an increase in the rate of sexual assault, up by 5% overall. While increases were seen among all three levels, the rise in the overall rate was driven primarily by an increase in level 1 sexual assaults.”
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2011001/article/11523-eng.htm
Sexual Assault – Definition
Ontario’s Women’s Directorate defines Sexual Assault as any unwanted act of a sexual nature (i.e. kissing, touching, oral or anal sex, intercourse or other forms of penetration) that is imposed on another person.
http://police.uwaterloo.ca/sexual-assault/
“Sexual assault level 1 (s.271): An assault committed in circumstances of a sexual nature such that the sexual integrity of the victim is violated. Level 1 involves minor physical injuries or no injuries to the victim.”
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85f0033m/85f0033m2008019-eng.htm
“Level One sexual assault is by far the most popular charge. It is a hybrid law, which means it can be a summary offence — a less serious crime such as unwanted touching or groping, with a maximum of 18 months’ imprisonment — or a more serious indictable offence, such as penetration, which can yield up to 10 years behind bars.”
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=4875b47e-4d12-4366-a4c6-a68d9a8bff82
Note, although these articles don’t get into this, a large proportion of these offenses take place between people who know each other, as co-workers, e.g., or are even living together.
So, again, what’s being able to know their location at any given time going to do, from a preventative point of view, and how much is its probative value (is it really reliable technology? and isn’t it just circumstantial evidence even if it is) worth if it’s just about getting more arrests and possible convictions after new offenses?
I did read the stats and that is why I posted in my reply to the comment of declining crime rates and as you can see if you choose to – that there are increases in some crimes that have a far greater impact on the victim and I will note that you did the Forest Gump by not repling to the concept of the GPS placing individuals at crime sites.
Your attempts to justify “unreported sexual assults” in my view just revictimizes those, women, men and children again as sexual assault is “NOT” a defination but a vilolation of individuals and that whether they know who the individual is or not does not change the fact that “sexual assult” is “sexual assault” –
I didn’t “attempts to justify ‘unreported sexual assults'” in the least, since I:
a) didn’t even mention the ‘unreported’ crimes, at all, but
b) merely pointed out the vast majority of the increases in the new POLICE REPORTED crimes stats that you’ve alluded to are in the least severe category — with no weapons and little or no injuries involved, which literally includes things like pinching someone’s ass; and,
c) wasn’t at all trying to justify the off-enses, but was challenging you to justify the EX-penses — both monetary and from a rights point of view — of monitoring people who have already served their time for them.
As for the alleged value of ‘putting people at the scene,’ with the GPS tech.:
again, do YOU have any evidence that it’s worth it, given that “the scene” is often their own homes, workplaces, or gyms or bars etc. where they’ll admit to being, anyway, and/or where there are usually eye witnesses to put them there?
Most of these cases are decided on sorting out who’s more credible in the ‘He Said / She Said’ testimony… not in whether the alleged malefactor was at the scene of the alleged crime or not.
But if you’re so big on the alleged deterrent value of GPS tech. (w/o, um, furnishing any actual evidence for it apart from your question-begging premise), why not go all the way and imbed chips in all of us and place cameras everywhere, oh, alleged conservative?
You are one of the few people who would try and rationalize sexual assult – I will post this again sexual asult is sexual assult – period.
As for cameras, it works in the UK
As for micro chipping, I wonder if you have been following what is occuring with the new debit cards that have the chip required to scan to pay – you should follow up as it might interest you and frankly, putting the odd chip into individuals there are some Liberal supporters that should be considered for any plan..
Uh-huh.
So, since “sexual asult is sexual assult” (even though every time you tried to advance that tautology they’re both spelled differently and, um, wrongly) and you can’t, don’t care to, or find it somehow offensive to discriminate between the different types or categories OF sexual assault, you’re…
okay with spending at least $50-M. a year even if it were just to monitor teenagers who were charged with touching someone’s body parts at school….
even though it may have no probative OR deterrent value?
(they did it school, where everyone knew they were at the time; and after the GPS shackle is put on, gee, we can pay someone to watch a computer, and report, yup, they’re back at school, the scene of the crime, again… what should we do: alert the police?)
And in another thread, you uncritically endorse the complaints of the U of T physiotherapy faculty study that CanadianSense unearthed, about how partially delisting some community based physiotherapy services MAY end up costing the health care system more money (because people will end up using more hospital services which ARE still fully funded),
http://warrenkinsella.com/2011/07/tim-hudak-would-defund-abortion-part-two/#comment-46593 forward
so you’re okay with not trying to, er, rationalize health care expenses, either….
So you’re all for spending more to protect the health and safety of the Ontario population, bravo. (But not so much for protecting their civil liberties by being willing to chip and spy on everybody 24/7: boo.)
And yet elsewhere you slag McGuinty for running up the debt.
So how, pray tell, would the DB Smith Hudak Conservatives in name only succeed in beefing up the health and justice systems without getting further into hock?