Politics in 2014

[pbi]

...If *we* were to expand the Maritime System to integrate "honorary" Anglosphere nations like the Netherlands and Japan, as well as India (which should probably be considered a "real" Anglosphere nation), then in the longer term *we* would have a much stronger and more flexible system, greater access to markets and resources and possibly a much brighter future as well.

Hmmmm. Interesting line of thinking here. I agree with Thucydides on this: a "coalition of the like-minded". One might balk at India at first, but you only need to compare that nation to the countries around it (especially TrainWreckistan) to see how much different it is, and how well suited it might be to enter into such a union.

 

[dapaterson]

I note that none of our usual cadre of CPC apologists have had anything to say about their boy Dean del Mastro, convicted under the Elections Act, and who the judge stated "frequently obfuscated" in his testimony.  I particularly like his response to being found guilty: "I know what the truth is. That's [the judge's] opinion. My opinion is quite different."

A very awkward situation for the tough-on-crime Conservative party: do they expel one of their own from the House, or is that only for Senators?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mp-dean-del-mastro-motion-could-delay-sentencing-loss-of-seat-1.2822089

 

[pbi]

As far as I know they expelled him from CPC a while ago. I think the judge observed that it is now up to Parliament to decide his political fate.

The CPC have, in my opinion, fallen prey to the Canadian political disease I call "second-term-itis".  It affects all Canadian ruling parties alike and is generally characterized by the rapid onset of arrogance, incipient corruption, disregard for inconvenient laws, frequently presenting a strain of anti-democratic behaviour as well. The victims will frequently find themselves engaged in increasingly bizzare dialogue as they try to explain their degenerating behaviour and why it is somebody else's fault, or invented by the media (the latter are frequently depicted as being controlled by the Devil)

In its more advanced state, it is often fatal. In some cases it has resulted in the spontaneous combustion of the infected party.

However, it has an odd sequel , called "the Zombie Effect". After self-immolation and apparent death, parties have been known to rise from the dead and resume power, usually by means of a massive infusion of new blood.

Scary stuff!

 

[The Bread Guy]

I note that none of our usual cadre of CPC apologists have had anything to say about their boy Dean del Mastro, convicted under the Elections Act, and who the judge stated "frequently obfuscated" in his testimony.  I particularly like his response to being found guilty: "I know what the truth is. That's [the judge's] opinion. My opinion is quite different."

Which is why he appears to be trying again - from his web page (text also attached if link doesn't work):

(MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2014 – PETERBOROUGH, ON) MP Dean Del Mastro is making an Application to re-open the defence in his case against Elections Canada prior to sentencing which is scheduled for November 21st, 2014. There is fresh evidence that was not put before the trial judge because it was not disclosed in a timely fashion by Elections Canada.
The test for determining whether to permit the fresh evidence to be admitted into the trial is as follows:
1. the evidence should generally not be admitted if, by due diligence, it could have been adduced at trial provided that this general principle will not be applied as strictly in a criminal case as in civil cases…;
2. the evidence must be relevant in the sense that it bears upon a decisive or potentially decisive issue in the trial;
3. the evidence must be credible in the sense that it is reasonably capable of belief;
4. it must be such that if believed it could reasonably, when taken with the other evidence adduced at trial, be expected to have affected the result.
Mr. Del Mastro’s lawyers will bring the Application immediately.

I guess this means that as long as the case is still in play, "the bosses" can say, "the case is still before the courts" and not have to act.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I shall replay my same old boring tune: the more regulations and programs accumulate, the more powerful government is.  The more powerful government is, the more important it is to retain control for one's faction and deny the legitimacy of any other faction, and to centralize the exercise of that control.  There is no such thing as a cadre of enlightened, benevolent, and wise technocrats to make a vastly powerful and meddlesome government bearable.  Dirigisme is always doomed by the stubbornly contrary wishes of tens of millions of citizens.

I read a recent Macleans article lamenting that the CPC government has become uncommunicative to media agencies on [the] level to which the agencies had become accustomed.  I wonder who was responsible for the pressures which convinced the Harper government that tight message discipline was necessary to acquire and retain political power in an era [when] the most trivially misspoken phrase echoes around the Internet for as long as unsympathetic partisans can sustain the chorus?

When the government is routinely described with adjectives like "illegitimate" and "criminal" and nouns like "regime", the knob is already at 11 and there is nowhere else to go, and no point to co-operating with the beating.

 

[pbi]

When the government is routinely described with adjectives like "illegitimate" and "criminal" and nouns like "regime", the knob is already at 11 and there is nowhere else to go, and no point to co-operating with the beating.

Then, IMHO, 'twas ever so, if you look back over the last 200 or so years of English language journalism. Rabble rousing and trashing the Govt of the day is a fine tradition. (And one most Govts have richly deserved at one time or another in their tenure) Until probably WWI and the onset of heavy Govt control of media, there really wasn't even a pretense of "objectivity".

Govts have always feared free media and sought to tame it or neutralize it (or, in the final resort of some extreme govts, shut it down and lock up the editors). As Napoleon once said : "Four newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets".

 

[Edward Campbell]

I shall replay my same old boring tune: the more regulations and programs accumulate, the more powerful government is.  The more powerful government is, the more important it is to retain control for one's faction and deny the legitimacy of any other faction, and to centralize the exercise of that control.  There is no such thing as a cadre of enlightened, benevolent, and wise technocrats to make a vastly powerful and meddlesome government bearable.  Dirigisme is always doomed by the stubbornly contrary wishes of tens of millions of citizens.

I read a recent Macleans article lamenting that the CPC government has become uncommunicative to media agencies on [the] level to which the agencies had become accustomed.  I wonder who was responsible for the pressures which convinced the Harper government that tight message discipline was necessary to acquire and retain political power in an era [when] the most trivially misspoken phrase echoes around the Internet for as long as unsympathetic partisans can sustain the chorus?

When the government is routinely described with adjectives like "illegitimate" and "criminal" and nouns like "regime", the knob is already at 11 and there is nowhere else to go, and no point to co-operating with the beating.

I think, in fact I'm 99.9% certain, that it was during the the 1984 election night TV coverage when I watched/listened to a senior, prime-time TV Canadian journalist who was on a TV panel that was watching the Conservatives win a MASSIVE majority (211 : 40 : 30 seats in a 282 seat house) saying something like, "Well, this is Big, the Liberals will not be much of an opposition; it will be up to us, the media, to be the real opposition to this government." The other journalists all nodded in accord.

Now I accept, indeed I'm happy that some (many? most?) journalists believe that they must dig into every government act, programme or statement and expose all the facts; that is a very useful artifact of a free society - and it's something that opposition parties don't do well enough, maybe because they don't have big enough, good enough research staffs. But it should be done as 'news,' if there is any, not as "Gotcha!" journalism, as is most often the case today.

(Perhaps it's interesting to note that a well known Canadian political journalist, George Bain, thought "Gotcha!" journalism was a problem 20 years ago.) 

 

[pbi]

...(Perhaps it's interesting to note that a well known Canadian political journalist, George Bain, thought "Gotcha!" journalism was a problem 20 years ago.) ..

If I'm not mistaken, the term "muckrackers" as an epithet for "gotcha" journalism, is about a century old. Teddy Roosevelt (no left-wing liberal he), is quoted as saying: "..."the men with the muck rakes are often indispensable to the well being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck...".

I guess that every politician, and every Govt PA spokesperson, has their own definition of  "...when to stop racking the muck...". Sooner when it's about them, much , much later when it's about the Other Guys.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I guess that every politician, and every Govt PA spokesperson, has their own definition of  "...when to stop racking the muck...". Sooner when it's about them, much , much later when it's about the Other Guys.

:nod:

Now I accept, indeed I'm happy that some (many? most?) journalists believe that they must dig into every government act, programme or statement and expose all the facts; that is a very useful artifact of a free society - and it's something that opposition parties don't do well enough, maybe because they don't have big enough, good enough research staffs. But it should be done as 'news,' if there is any, not as "Gotcha!" journalism, as is most often the case today.

Which also leads back to your idea that media's there to sell sets of ears/sets of eyes to advertisers - and what does this say about Canada's "collective eyes/ears" when this is what draws?

 

[Kirkhill]

But that brings us back to Thucydides' CBC drum.

The issue is not that the press is biased.  The issue is that the Government is paying, with my taxpayer dollars, to be beaten like said drum.

Faction is indeed part of politics -  Heck, it is the whole of politics.

Rabble rousing, muckraking, pamphleteering, scandal-mongering, gotcha journalism are all part of the package.

As are those arch muckrakers John Wilkes, William Lyon MacKenzie and George Brown.

The ability of any faction to publish their views, have them bellowed in the town square, debate them at Hyde Park corner, attract new allies to their faction is not the question.  That is the chaos of democracy that Churchill championed.  The tradition is alive and well in the UK.  Matt Drudge and MSNBC continue the tradition in the US.

Canadians seem to be mired in a quaint notion of there being some sort of order out there that can be defined and maintained and should be promulgated.

There ain't.

Personally, as a good Presbyterian lad, I blame the Catholics and the pseudo-Catholics, the Anglicans and the Lutherans.  Millenia of being directed from above, with crumbs being dispensed in place of bread and circuses rationed have taken their toll.

Give me the freedom of some good old fashioned witch-burning Covenanters.  And pass the (tax-free) whisk(e)y.

 

 

[Edward Campbell]

I note that none of our usual cadre of CPC apologists have had anything to say about their boy Dean del Mastro, convicted under the Elections Act, and who the judge stated "frequently obfuscated" in his testimony.  I particularly like his response to being found guilty: "I know what the truth is. That's [the judge's] opinion. My opinion is quite different."

A very awkward situation for the tough-on-crime Conservative party: do they expel one of their own from the House, or is that only for Senators?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mp-dean-del-mastro-motion-could-delay-sentencing-loss-of-seat-1.2822089

Twitter is suggesting that the PMO, through the Government House Leader, Peter Van Loan, and the Speaker, has fast tracked things and Mt Del Mastro will be expelled from the HoC today. If that's the case it will go some way to defusing the situation ... "We expelled him from our caucus months ago, the CPC will say, and now we have expelled him from the House, too ... move along now, nothing to see here, nothing that concerns the CPC anyway." The opposition parties will try to make something stick but my guess is that pocketbook issues will prevail.

I can still see the possibility of a late fall (8 Dec) general election ~ but the window is closing fast.

 

[pbi]

But that brings us back to Thucydides' CBC drum.

...The issue is not that the press is biased.  The issue is that the Government is paying, with my taxpayer dollars, to be beaten like said drum...

And in my view, there can be nothing more fine and honourable than that our tax dollars go towards such a noble enterprise: a media watchdog on the government, that isn't subject to the vagaries of corporate sponsorship. In the fine tradition of the BBC and the ABC, long may they carry on.

...
Personally, as a good Presbyterian lad, I blame the Catholics and the pseudo-Catholics, the Anglicans and the Lutherans.  Millenia of being directed from above, with crumbs being dispensed in place of bread and circuses rationed have taken their toll.

Ahhhh... you and the rest of that grubby, self-righteous tee-totalling Dissenter/Nonconformist lot. At least we of the of the "Big Pointy Hat Churches" enjoy our booze and aren't afraid to admit it, unlike those closet-tippling Baptists, Presbyterians, Calvinists and the rest. Boring lot of God-botherers, if you ask me.

Give me the freedom of some good old fashioned witch-burning Covenanters.  And pass the (tax-free) whisk(e)y. 

Well...if it's a good single malt, alright then. :cheers:

 

[Edward Campbell]

Reports are surfacing on Twitter (from generally reliable sources (John Ivision and David Akin)) that one or even two Liberal MPs will be suspended from caucus over sexual harassment allegations ... that may neuter the stench of Dean De Mastro's conviction.

Edit to add:

The Huffington Post reports that the two Liberal MPs are: "Montreal MP Massimo Pacetti and Newfoundland MP Scott Andrews."

Further edit to add:

It's official ...

Yet another edit to add:

CTV News provided this picture of the two MPs who were expelled from the Liberal caucus:

                                                  Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti

 

[Edward Campbell]

The Liberal's misfortunes are not the sort of thing that will send the PM over to Rideau Hall to ask for a snap election ... not until he is sure that another shoe, the Conservative shoe, is not going to drop, too.

He's got to be worried that the "other shoe," charges against CPC MPs, will not become public until after he goes to the polls.

 

[Kirkhill]

But -

Colin Kenny & Mac Harb vs Ken Duffy, Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin
Dean del Maestro vs Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti

And the odds are starting to even.

Also, on the F35

The technology is maturing
Buys are becoming more frequent and bigger
ISIS is making the case for it
And Canadian Defence Industries Association members are already in the wings complaining about the work they have lost to Norway, Turkey, Japan, Korea, Israel...... while we have been fiddle-farting around.

As a Liberal or Dipper wanna take on the case that the Conservatives haven't acted fast enough on the F-35 file?

PS .... I wouldn't recommend spending too much time attacking Pamela .... unless you are a tone-deaf Easterner.

 

[mariomike]

There is a "Draft Doug Ford for PC leader" website, for anyone interested:

http://draftdougford.ca/

“We are a group of Ontarians in the GTA who feel that Doug Ford would be the only person who can renew the party. To win a leadership contest you need to sell memberships. As a natural born salesman, Doug Ford has the ability to add life to a room and sell people on his ideas for a better future for the PC Party.

Doug Ford would be able to win many areas in Toronto in a general election, something our party hasn’t been able to do in over a decade.”

Maybe there will be out of town Ford Fests?

 

[pbi]

But -

Colin Kenny & Mac Harb vs Ken Duffy, Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin
Dean del Maestro vs Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti

And the odds are starting to even.

Hmmm. Interesting stuff. I guess the good thing about this smelly, steaming pile is that we're actually hearing about it.

 

[Edward Campbell]

But -

Colin Kenny & Mac Harb vs Ken Duffy, Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin
Dean del Maestro vs Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti

And the odds are starting to even.
...

I'm just hearing on the radio (CBC) that Dean Del Mastro has preempted his opponents and has resigned, sparing the CPC the unpleasant task of throwing out one of their friends and denying the opposition the chance to say that he was "expelled."

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Also, on the F35


ISIS is making the case for it

Say what???????  ISIL makes the case for buying a 5th generation fighter?

 

[dapaterson]

I'm just hearing on the radio (CBC) that Dean Del Mastro has preempted his opponents and has resigned, sparing the CPC the unpleasant task of throwing out one of their friends and denying the opposition the chance to say that he was "expelled."

Cue the patronage appointment for a quiet Friday in a few months.