Takes one to know one
“Your a dork.”
Takes one to know one, etc.
“Your a dork.”
Takes one to know one, etc.
There are lots of rules to remember about politics and public relations and the law. Here are ten.
There you go: ten PR tips, free of charge. Haven’t even mentioned your name.
Don’t have to.
Good morning, Your Honour. We appear before you this morning to argue for the proposition that the defendant, the National Rifle Association of America, hereafter referred to as the NRA, is properly classified as a terrorist organization. And, accordingly, that the NRA’s directors and officers have been engaged in a campaign of terror against civilian populations.
Our indictment of the NRA, as you know, arises out of section 802 of the USA Patriot Act, No. 107-52, which has expanded the definition of terrorism to cover “domestic,” as opposed to international, terrorism.
Therein, the Patriot Act, which was overwhelmingly supported and passed by all parties in Congress, sets out that a person has engaged in domestic terrorism if they do something that is “dangerous to human life,” which the NRA has in fact done since the earliest days of its 1871 charter in New York State.
To be successful in prosecuting a crime under the Patriot Act, it must be shown that the NRA, one, intimidated or coerced the civilian population — which they have done, ceaselessly, for generations.
Two, that they have influenced the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion — which they have done, with armies of millionaire gun lobbyists threatening elected representatives with defeat and disgrace if they do not do the NRA’s bidding.
And, three, most crucially, we must show the NRA has attempted to affect the conduct of our government by “mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.”
We cannot state for a fact, Your Honour, that the NRA has actively engaged in assassinations or kidnappings. We can state, however, that the NRA will be shown to have energetically advocated measures that are bound to lead to mass destruction, even in the wake of the killings of 20 children in Newtown.
One of their recent advertising campaigns even offers up the former president’s own children as rhetorical fodder, and is ample evidence of the NRA’s willingness — like any terrorist organization — to terrorize children and parents to achieve its political goals.
We also take the view that at the time Thomas Jefferson and other founders ratified the Second Amendment, they did not intend it to be applied to the mass murder of six-year-olds using assault weapons. It was to be applied to flintlocks, which were what existed at the time of the amendment’s promulgation.
We are aware that the definition of terrorism is broad, Your Honour, and there is a robust debate about when it applies.
But under section 802 of the Patriot Act, we remind you that this court need only find the NRA has — within the territorial confines of the United States — engaged in a campaign of intimidation or coercion of our government, and our citizens.
You need only find that the NRA seeks to affect the conduct of government by advocating “mass destruction.”
Lobbying for guns in schools is that, Your Honour. So is openly threatening members of Congress so that they will lift bans on assault weapons. So is helping teenagers to purchase AK-47 assault weapons at gun shows. So is calling law enforcement “jack-booted government thugs.”
So is suggesting the last same president of the United States facilitates murder. So, most of all, is assassinating minimal efforts to prevent something like Newtown from ever happening again.
All these things the NRA has done, Your Honour. All of these acts of intimidation and coercion are not dissimilar to the campaigns of the Taliban or al-Qaida.
They may wear expensive suits, Your Honour, but the NRA is not much different from the terrorists. They deserve to be treated as such by this court.
As predicted: his strategy is to destroy his former political home.
He’s doing that.
This turns the PC Party of Ontario into a running joke. Their leadership race becomes a farce.
All that can save them now is another young woman coming forward to tell her story.
Will she?
UPDATE:
There’s a couple of them that seem particularly germane this morning.
I wonder who I am referring to?
• Don’t attack your alleged victims. In the #MeToo era, even Harvey Weinstein – the rutting pig who essentially started the movement – understood that you don’t victimize the victims twice. That is one the best things that have happened, post-Weinstein, in fact: in the court of public opinion, the balance of proof has shifted. More and more of us have a tendency to give women alleging sexual abuse the benefit of the doubt. You needed to remember that. You didn’t.
• Put up or shut up. It’s been more than three weeks. You’ve called the allegations against you “defamatory,” over and over and over. Well, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is, big little man. Either issue a Libel Notice, or don’t. But if you don’t – and, so far, you haven’t – you are reminding everyone that, mostly, what was said about you was true.
Many guys will understand what I mean when I say this: your father is both a bit of light, and a bit of shadow, over your path through life.
Mine, T. Douglas Kinsella, MD, OC, would have been 86 years old today. So many years after we lost him, he remains a constant in our lives. He still illuminates some of the path. Without even being here, he still quietly persuades me to examine the choices I have made.
Me? I have made bad choices. I have been reckless and cruel with the hearts of too many. I have not lived by the single rule he left us.
“Love people, and be honest,” he said to us, and I often feel I have done neither.
He saved many lives as a physician, and he won accolades, and he was a member of the Order of Canada. But for us – my brothers, my nephew he raised, my closest friends – he was the man we aspired to be. Not for the distinctions he received, but for how he was, in his soul.
He was unfailingly honest; he was kind to everyone he met. He married his high school sweetheart, and was with her every single day for 50 years, and my God how they loved each other. We would sit there at the kitchen table in Calgary or Kingston or Montreal, and we would listen to him. He’d listen to us, too, and persuade us to try and figure things out. There were some great times, around that table.
The best thing is having a father like that. The harder thing is knowing that you will never be like him.
I had a dream that he died in 9/11; I don’t know why, but I did. I woke up weeping, and remembered that I wasn’t a boy anymore, and that he has been gone for more than a decade. I don’t think he would like what his son has become. I know I don’t.
So I put on my pants and shoes, and went out into the day, looking for what’s left of the path.
Happy birthday. I miss you.
Here’s why I have nothing but contempt for the man, and why I left his gang: he oversaw, and defended, flying the racist Shaidle to Israel.
March 2010: Kathy Shaidle and Canada Israel Committee VP Sara Faber-Freedman on flight to Israel.
On Friday night, in Calgary, I spotted tweets by the Prime Minister of Canada and the Minister of Justice about the verdict in the trial of the “man” who shot Colten Boushie in the back of the head with a semi-automatic handgun at point-blank range. It was, for the record, an appalling, disgusting, truly unjust verdict.
The Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice, however, decided to offer comments on the verdict and the victim. They did this before the Crown had made a decision on an appeal.
On Saturday morning, I raised the matter with my class at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law. To a one, my students expressed tremendous sympathy for the young victim and his family. To a one, they also expressed concern – as I did – that the Prime Minister of Canada (generally) and the Minister of Justice (specifically) would comment while there was still the possibility of an appeal.
“Have Trudeau and Wilson-Raybould harmed the Crown’s position?” I asked.
To answer that, you need to know what the sub judice rule is.
The sub judice rule is a rule of court, a statutory rule, a parliamentary convention, and a practice that has developed in the interaction between media and public officials…
The term subjudice literally means “under judicial consideration” or “before the court or judge for determination.” At its most basic, the sub judice rule prohibits the publication of statements which may prejudice court proceedings.
That is from a lengthy Dalhousie Law Journal legal analysis of the rule. On the face of it, the comments by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice were, indeed, statements on a court proceeding. But was the court proceeding still underway? And, if so, were they statements that could prejudice a court proceeding?
Our highest court has mainly left it to provincial appeal courts to figure out what the sub judice rule means. Our provincial courts, meanwhile, have said there must be a clear intent to interfere with a trial. And/or, there must be a real and substantial risk of prejudice – beyond a reasonable doubt – to the administration of justice. And/or, if the comments were made in good faith to inform the public about a matter of pressing importance, no contempt finding follows.
Looking at those appeal court rulings, you’d be moved to say that Trudeau and Wilson-Raybould could safely say what they did. But I’m not sure you’d be right.
That’s because they’re not just individuals – they are the two most senior and powerful lawmakers in Canada.
Here in Ontario, to cite just one recent and local example, cabinet ministers have resigned because they named young offenders. Those were cases of statutory contempt, however, where there was a clear and written prohibition about naming a young offender. But what about a situation like the Colten Boushie case? What do the courts say?
Here’s one case that is right on point:
Comments made by higher level members of government, such as Ministers, may be seen to have more impact. This was illustrated in the case of Director of Public Prosecutions v Wran, in which the Premier of New South Wales stood in front of a court house and publicly stated that an accused was innocent. The Court of Appeal found him guilty of contempt, giving weight to his position as Premier, which would increase the newsworthiness of his prejudicial comments.
My view is that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice should not have commented – not because of the sub judice rule, per se, but because of paradox.
This is the paradox: because of their positions – because of the powers with which they’ve been entrusted – Trudeau and Wilson-Raybould may have hurt the very thing they (and most of us) desire:
Justice for the dead boy named Colten Boushie.
…but it certainly resembles that. That was what I wrote last week, too.
A PMO director contacting a complainant in a sexual harassment case, when a third-party, arms-length investigation was already underway into that same sexual harassment case? That’s a big no-no. Any first year law student would know that, once a quasi-judicial review is underway, you simply cannot communicate with potential witnesses. Lawyers have been disbarred for less.
But that’s what a PMO director did – about a case involving another PMO director.
Eddy Ng, a Dalhousie University professor specializing in human resources management, told The Hill Times he saw several issues with the way government officials dealt with communications professional Myriam Denis, who wrote her account of interactions with two high-ranking Liberal staffers in a Huffington Post Canada blog on Feb. 5.
Mr. Ng said it was problematic for Mr. Thalmann to reach out to a potential victim while an independent investigation into an alleged harasser was ongoing, because he would be seen as having an interest in the matter by virtue of his PMO position.
“He has no role in the investigation, period. He is seen as an agent of the PMO. In this case, he has—on the surface—an interest in protecting the PMO’s reputation,” he said.
He said a third-party investigation has to be—and be entirely perceived to be—neutral, unbiased, and fair. Anything that can be viewed as influencing an investigation can harm the integrity of the process.
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