Musings —05.20.2013 07:09 AM
—Canada’s most wanted
Now that he’s seen as (a) responsible for bringing down Nigel Wright, who every Ottawa Conservative admired and liked, and (b) whipping the Press Gallery into a Tory-hating frenzy, Mike Duffy’s political life isn’t worth a plug nickel.
Heretofore, Duffy needs to sleep with one eye open, and a gun under his pillow. What Harper did to Mulroney with the Schreiber thing is nothing compared to what Harper is going to do to him, now.
It is going to be very, very ugly.
Ugly, but entertaining…
At this point we are still just seeing the smoke. One wonders what is at the bottom of all this, what scheme is there that the PMO is so desperately trying to hide that they are sacrificing their “prize” soldiers. One hopes there is unrelenting pursuit until the truth is found.
Why is Duffy responsible for bringing down Nigel Wright? Didn’t Wright do that all by himself?
Duffy exposed his lack of ethics when he did his hatchet job on Stephane Dion. Harper knew what he was getting when he appointed him. Sadly, in typical Harper fashion, instead of taking responsibility for his own choices he is scapegoating others.
I have no sympathy either for Mr. Wright or for Mr. Duffy. Actions have consequences – even for conservatives. Someday Harper will have to step up and take responsibility for his actions too…
it has been noted elsewhere that its getting awfully crowded under the bus, wait until and Pam and the Puffster are tossed under
I agree. It’s getting very crowded down by the exits of evil 🙂
Short of outright murder there is really nothing Stephen Harper can do to Mr. Duffy. He is a Senator for life or until he is 75, whichever comes first.
If Mr. Harper tries to make Senator Duffy’s life difficult the Senator can just sit back and thumb his nose at him, safe in his red seat.
Heck, I would say Mr. Duffy has a better chance of making Mr. Harper’s life difficult if he became sufficiently motivated.
The Senate can vote to expell him for not being a resident of PEI, amoung other reasons.
Somewhere, I suspect Stephane Dion is smiling……..I used to quite like Mike Duffy as a political commentator, until it became quite obvious he was nothing more than a shill for the Canadian Alliance Party…….
Enjoy yer time in political purgatory, Duff…..
What I really would like to see is Cavendish PEI plastered with smiling Dion signs saying “Karma is a bitch”!
Yes!! Also remember when he targeted Margaret Trudeau at PET’s funeral by reminding her that it was Mischa’s birthday; she collapsed, because she’d forgotten. And the bullying on PnP of the NDP guy, Hargrove? while he was bragging about going to some military do, dressed in his tux.
He’s repulsive. I have no sympathy whatsoever. If he takes up bottle collecting, I might give him some, but I doubt it.
I think it was Peter Stoffer he had that exchange with…unless this was another occasion. Anyway, in the Stoffer thing, Duffy was clearly hammered.
I can see a drunk a mile off.
What good would that do? Duffy spends next to no time in Cavendish. Better to put those signs in Ottawa.
Gayle:
At this moment, Harper’s action’s seem to be taking responsibility for him. And not in a good way.
It will get ugly.
Someone has the motive/capability to acquire private emails and leak them to the press.
Whomever it is, I will regard them as loyal Canadians.
A veritable media attack of mass destruction. Who needs negative attack ads when the media is there to do it for ya!
Meanwhile not a peep out of Trudeau or Mulcair because they know most of the senators were padding their travel and residence allowances.
Sober second thought has given way to media gotcha roasting. The Senate is a corrupt concept nowadays, but will Harper attempt to push senate reform or outright abolition requiring the consent of the provinces?
Trudeau and Mulcair don’t say a word because when your enemy is destroying himself without your help, you just stand back and watch the train wreck.
Trudeau’s poll numbers are about to jump big time in areas such as competence and judgement.
After what happened in BC and, earlier, Alberta, you still want to put your faith in polls? Jesus Christ!!!
Now would be a great time to start spreading the photos and videos of PM Harper and Mayor Rob Ford chumming around. Two peas in a pod.
This? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kGdGQzGoKJc
I’m wondering about the income tax aspects of this:
if the next wave of the external audit & a likely RCMP investigation after that find there were multiple instances of him billing both the Senate and the local CPC campaigns for the same travel expenses,
did he always claim / record both in the appropriate slots in his personal (or is The Old Duff a sole corporation?) income tax return,
and since only one of them would be reclaiming expenses, would the other be income …of a sort? which sort?
& if he didn’t declare the double-billed parts, what’s the penalty? (if it amounted to, say, $30,000 in the 2011 election year).
It is not just the tax implications – if he claimed reimbursement from the Senate and the Conservative party for the same expense, it is fraud.
“if he claimed reimbursement from the Senate and the Conservative party”… I have trouble seeing how that is not a criminal offence, and if it is, then it would seem to me that the hush money would be viewed as obstruction of justice, which I think is also a criminal offense. Would anyone with a legal background care to comment?
Fraud is a criminal offence.
yes, agree on it maybe being the least of his worries, but I’m just raising it given the ‘world of hurt / payback to come’ theme of the post:
i.e., in addition to possibly having future income taken away by being removed from Senate (for not meeting residency requirement) & possibly being charged with fraud for inappropriate expense claims, might he ALSO be facing a CRA audit & fined some more for his past income?
The Ethics Commish and RCMP may find no criminal wrong doing re: all of the Senators.
Thusly the only causality may end up being the political career of Nigel Wright.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/05/18/rex-murphy-the-hidden-agenda-revealed/
i think Rex has it right.
Not likely. He’s never been right about anything yet, and Harper isn’t as smart as people think.
In 1931 (yes warren, dating myself again:-) ) Wilard Robison wrote one of the saddest songs of all time “a cottage for sale” made super famous by Sinatra many years later. Never have lyrics been more appropriate for the Duffy situation. You have to imagine the round one singing this as he waits for Harper to drop kick him to kingdom come.
ray in kingston
A cottage for sale.
-Willard Robison
A little dream castle with every dream gone
Is lonely and silent, the shades are all drawn
And my heart is heavy as I gaze upon
A cottage for sale
The lawn we were proud of is waving in hay
Our beautiful garden has withered away
Where you planted roses, the weeds seem to say
A cottage for sale
From every single window, I see your face
But when I reach a window, there’s an empty space
The key’s in the mailbox, the same as before
But no one is waiting for me anymore
The end of our story is told on the door
A cottage for sale
The big unanswered question in all this is who is leaking all this to Fife and to what end. With that, Harper has a bigger problem on his hands than Duffy, who–let’s face it–is already spent with or without payback from the PM.
But the comeuppance has been deliciously schadenfreude-y.
The only thing that keeps running through my head is when Mulclair comes out with his “abolish the Senate” policy during election time- it will score him some major points to the detriment of Trudeau. I feel Trudeau has to somehow get in front of the ball on this one. If not, he allows Mulclair to be the only politician advocating the will of Canadians on this major issue.
As we know, Harper was a fan of Senate abolition (or Triple E) for some time, until the CPC came to power. Perhaps this will resurface at the next election, which would thrill Senate-haters such as me. There is no point in trying to save the Senate – just put the existing Senators out to pasture with their generous pensions, and trash the whole circus.
The Senate’s original purpose was to be the chamber of sober second thought…to peruse the legislations brought to them and make alterations after non-partisan discussions to improve said legislations and to ensure that the legislations are Constitutionally sound and sensible.
At first I was on the abolition side, but not I’m not so sure. With the Senate being as badly damaged as it has been, it has been a rubber-stamp for bad government, but that is because they are politicians appointed by politicians.
Someone suggested that the current Senate be completely dismantled, and a new Senate consisting of non-partisan knowledgeable citizens be constructed, through a combination of a lottery-like selection and vetting process. The Senate could also be reduced in size, to, say, two to five per province depending on the population of that province. Or, provinces could nominate certain potentials as well, then the vetting process could begin.
We need that Chamber Of Sober Second Thought as long as we have a Parliamentary “Democracy”. Until our entire system of government is completely free of the first past the post crap, we will need a tier above the House.
+1
I think you mean henceforward rather than heretofore but otherwise spot on.
I am not so sure about the claims that there is not much Harper can do to Mike Duffy because he is now an independent Senator. Senators can be removed from office if convicted of a serious criminal offence. The PMO may have enough information to leak to the RCMP to make such an allegation probable and a conviction possible. That may mean throwiing a few more “loyal soldiers” under the bus, but hey, why stop when you’ve got a ‘mission” and you are “on a roll”.
But then Duffy will find himself standing in court making statements under oath.
I’ll leave it at that.
😉
Next time someone raises Adscam I hope they remember JC called in the RCMP but “The Harper Government” called in the cover up.
This relates to an earlier musing but while I’m here ….. DUDE ! forget about the Washington Post; who would have thought back in the day when you whiled away the afternoon flipping through its pages at Sound Swap that The Hot Nasties would get a mention in NME ! http://www.nme.com/news/palma-violets/70375
Holy shit
You’re gonna dine on this for years!