It will be such a good day, too!  My God Almighty, how I enjoy the misery and despair that will be unleashed today!

Trumpkins being bankrupted by legal bills! Once-close Trumpsters turning on each other before grand juries! The inner circle’s mug shots living on the Internet, forever!  Make Assholes Guilty Again!

Who do you think is heading to the slammer? Vote now, vote often!

 

It’s #IndictmentMonday! Woot! Who’s getting their very own mugshot today?

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) October 30, 2017

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The OPP, as you may recall, criminally charged two Ontario Liberals for “deleting” some emails which weren’t deleted. The guy they used to do the deleting is Pete Faist. That’s well known. 

What wasn’t known until this afternoon is this: THE OPP HIRED PETE FAIST TO DO THE SAME THING FOR THEM. 

From someone who was at the trial today:

We learned that Peter Faist worked as a security and network architect for a number of large corporations – like BMO and CTV – and government agencies – like OLG and OPP. He never had any issue passing a security check. 
In fact, when Peter worked for the OPP Major Crimes unit, he was not assigned his own log-in and password but rather used an OPP staff member’s to conduct his work.  

So the process at OPP was identical to the process at OPO. He was signed in. Accompanied by a member of staff. Did his work using someone else’s password. 

Will media report this? Probably not. The narratives are so baked in…nothing seems to be breaking through. Even as the defense dismantles the more sensational allegations…

I don’t know about you, but I find this mind-blowing: when the OPP hired Pete to do this work, it was okay. 

But when the same guy was hired to do the same work at Queen’s Park, it’s suddenly a crime?

This trial is a fucking farce, now. That, or someone needs to swear a complaint against the OPP. 

Maybe I’ll do that. 

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From the just-out review of the School Library Journal of Recipe For Hate:

With a title ripped from a Bad Religion song, this book does not try to hide its punk flair. X and Kurt Blank are best friends in Portland, Maine at the beginning of the punk rock movement. Kurt acts as a Nick Carraway figure to X’s Gatsby, narrating his story. Fueled by anger, music, and misfit solidarity, the boys are devastated when one of their own is crucified behind the local bar that hosts punk shows. With police who seem less than fully committed to finding the murderers, X throws himself into figuring out what is going on and uncovers a twisted plot of Nazi ideals…the story compels readers forward…The novel’s unpolished aspect, which in another book might be off-putting, adds a layer of punk rock attitude. It is a story analogous to modern times and will find a home in activist hands.

VERDICT: A compelling and jagged read, buy for the anarchists and misfits in your library.

In case you don’t know (I didn’t), the SLJ is the world’s largest reviewer of books, multimedia, and technology for teens and young adults, etc.

Not bad!

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I don’t think so, and I said so to Mr. Nuttall at The Tyee:

Political consultant and former North Vancouver Liberal candidate Warren Kinsella rejects that idea.

Kinsella told The Tyee the Liberal strategy has always been to win as many seats across the board as possible. Although some “central Canadian” strategists may suggest trying to trade off seats in B.C. for gains elsewhere, Kinsella said he doubts Trudeau would go for it.

“That kind of calculus is pretty risky,” he said. “I just do not believe that of him, that he would discount the ever growing number of seats found in B.C. because somebody suggested to him he could make it up somewhere else.”

Kinsella said the Liberals do seem out of touch on some environmental issues in B.C.

But some of the groups Trudeau has upset in B.C., such as the anti-pipeline contingent, would have likely voted for the New Democrats anyway, he added.

The government has been “losing its sea legs” in other provinces lately and it’s not an issue specific to B.C., Kinsella said. “Sometimes you get into those phases where everything seems to be going wrong and you can’t catch a break.”

With an “untested” Jagmeet Singh leading the federal NDP and new Conservative leader Andrew Scheer a “dud,” Kinsella said Trudeau is still the contender to beat in 2019.

Others interviewed include Kai Nagata, David Moscrop and my friend Herb Dhaliwal. Check it out, comments are open.

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Twenty bucks will get you the book and the record (both signed)! Ten bucks will get you the bands and a bad rash.

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Let us peer into the oracle that is Abacus (who, full disclosure, Daisy uses all the time, and proudly so).  It contains all sorts of interesting factoids and fun.  A chart, for your perusal:

It astounds and astonishes me that Blandy Scheer is this competitive – but if Abacus says he is, then he is.  It is less surprising, however, that Justin Trudeau – only now emerging from three months of myriad Morneau-messes – is slightly less popular.  And it is decidedly puzzling that Jagmeet Singh has yet to register on the public consciousness, because the new-New Democrat boss is a Trudeauesque charismatic hipster.

Anyway.  Full poll is here.  And comments are open.

 

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Top:Herr Marchand.  Top right: Bill Corcoran and a rabble-rousing punk.

It’s Thursday, which means old folks get to circulate photos of themselves when they were younger, better-looking and less preoccupied with mortgage payments.

My contribution to today’s #TBT is the photo above, taken sometime in 1976.  It’s the St. Bonaventure Junior High Student Council in Southeast Calgary, a not-so-benevolent dictatorship presided over by Mr. Marchand, who declared aloud that Bill and me (and Dan and Lee and Pat and Neil and others) were “Marxist agitators.” Guilty as charged.

That was the Spring that the Ramones first album had come out, of course, and our lives – previously mired in the Satanic monoculture that was suburban Calgary – changed for good, and for the good.  As you can see, I was already doing my utmost to look like Dee Dee Ramone.

We had started up something called the NCNA – the Non-Conformist News Agency – to antagonize the school administration.  We burned the school’s constitution, we put up posters memorializing the shootings at Kent State, and – to royally piss off Mr. Marchand, mission accomplished – we ran a fictional candidate in the student council election.  We called him Herbie Schwartz, and Herbie won in a landslide.

Mr. Marchand was unimpressed.  “You little bastards are going to serve on student council,” he said to Bill and me, so we did.  He came to regret it.

All of this, and more, is found in Recipe For Hate, coming soon (or now out, depending on how with-it your local bookseller is) to a shelf near you.  And everything in that book, pretty much, got its start in suburban Calgary in the Spring of 1976, when the Ramones rewrote the future for a bunch of suburban Calgary shit-disturbers.

Of such things is #TBT made.  Sometimes, you can even write a YA trilogy about them.

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