Latest Wikileaks dump reveals crooked Hillary team's admiration of CBC/Trudeau collusion

Graeme Gordon:

... if you ask Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives they would tell you “Face to Face with the PM” was a great PR scheme they would like to emulate.  In some of the most recent emails dumped by Wikileaks from today, John Podesta (Clinton’s campaign chairman) and other staffers discussed and lauded the public broadcaster’s propaganda program.  

... Way to go CBC! You’ve got top political players in the most powerful county in the world following your lead in creating their “staged” propaganda. You should make this a lead story. It’s about you after all, and you helped your idol, Hillary! Also, now would be a good time as ever for you to lend your sophistry to her floundering campaign.

UN censor, Nick Nuttall's role in payoff to Kofi Anan

Nick Nuttall is the wackadoodle U.N. censor who denied media accreditation to The Rebel's reporters attending the Marrakesh climate conference next month.  Claudia Rosett describes a conflict of interest scandal involving Kofi Anan and Nick Nuttall's role in it:

Laws are for the little people

Mark Steyn:

... As I've said for years - on radio, TV and in print - for me the overriding issue in American politics is the corruption. In the Obama era, we have seen the remorseless merging of the party and the state - in the IRS, in the Justice Department and elsewhere. Whatever one feels about, say, Scandinavia, they at least come to their statism and socialism more or less honestly. Not so the United States. ...  

... The left is serious about power, and they don't waste time. The idea that the most personally corrupt candidate in modern American history will govern as some sort of benign moderate centrist placeholder until the wankers who thought Jeb Bush was a superstar shoo-in come up with their next inspiration is utterly preposterous.

The Trudeau Liberal record so far

Graeme Gordon summarizes the Liberal's performance to date, and isn't impressed, to say the least. He closes with some advice for our boy PM:

... Justin Trudeau should learn from Oscar Wilde’s sole novel’s protagonist. Dorian Gray appears publicly to be an honourable man of eternal youth, but underlying superficial appearances he is dissolute, lazy, narcissistic, and corrupt. 

... Trudeau still has three more years, possibly many more, to determine his self-portrait–the true picture beneath all the selfies and perfectly-edited photos courtesy of his 24/7 personal photographer. He’d best heed the importance of being earnest and frugal.

How politicians corrupt the media

Notley's recent attempt to directly censor journalists she doesn't like is one thing.  A more insidious form of corruption has been politicians' blatant [legal?] bribing of journalists and media outlets they do like. 

Ezra Levant discusses this in today's Financial Post:

... The CBC is the obvious example. In the recent federal election, the NDP and Liberals battled for the hearts and minds of the CBC’s journalists. Thomas Mulcair started the bidding with a promise of a $115 million annual CBC bonus if he were elected. Not to be outdone, Trudeau upped the ante to a whopping $150 million. The politicians were brazen: they were offering the journalists who cover them a success fee [using taxpayers' money] if they were elected.

... The Canadian Media Guild, the journalists’ union that dominates the CBC as well as The Canadian Press newswire, formally registered as a “third-party” campaign group with Elections Canada, ... Every unionized journalist covering the election was contributing part of their own salary to an anti-Harper election effort.

... It’s not just CBC journalists who are corrupted by being politicians’ pets. Journalists at private media are, too. As they nervously polish up their LinkedIn resumes, they can’t help but notice that the only major, national news organization still hiring is the CBC ... How many private sector journalists are tailoring their own work now to mirror the editorial line of the CBC where they hope to be in six months?

The Liberals are baaackk!

Brian Lilley sees Liberal corruption in the reversal of Conservatives' union secret ballot legislation:

The minister in charge of the labour file ... doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about....

Elections Canada partisan, corrupt

Brian Lilley:

Elections Canada offered a sole sourced contract worth nearly $1 million to the Assembly of First Nations to engage in voter outreach even as key members of the organization made highly partisan statements calling for the defeat of the Conservative government. ...

Those incestuous liberals

Ezra Levant:

More BS about polar bears

This week the media have been dutifully spreading more alarmist misinformation about declining polar bear numbers.  WUWT, via a Canadian expert,  supplies the true story:

Dr Susan Crockford, a Canadian zoologist and professor with more than 35 years experience, has been highly critical of these stories, claiming that they are misleading the public.

Responding to the claims in the media, Dr Crockford said:

“The main story of this study is the remarkable recovery of the polar bear population by 2010 which has likely continued since then. To suggest that polar bear populations have been declining is hugely misleading.
“The authors have also acknowledged that the cause of the 2004-2006 decline was heavy spring ice conditions. They found no correlation for the decline with summer sea ice conditions.”

 Would it be too much to ask the so-called "professional" journalists of the mainstream media to do some basic fact checking before reporting these stories?  Probably, they're more interested in promoting climate alarmism than in science.

Liberal attack columns TV networks and newspaper chains

Media Party columnists hacks routinely bleat about those mean Harperites and their "attack ads" against boy-Justin.  Which is really rich coming from the set that has entire newspaper chains and TV networks at their disposal to attack Conservatives on a daily basis, all at no expense to Liberals. 

Stephen Maher, a "Robocall" hysteric, is one of those.  Presumably to coincide with the release of Trudeau's new autobiography, yesterday Maher enthused about a new book by Michael Harris smearing Stephen Harper "Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover":

... Michael Harris writes about the Harper- Finkelstein link...
... Harper is inspired by Republicans, a leader hostile to Canada’s system of parliamentary democracy, and in Party of One Harris meticulously traces what he sees as Harper’s attack on that system.
... Harris connects the dots between Harper and Finkelstein, who is nicknamed the “merchant of venom” because of his skill with attack ads....

In other words Harris' book is chock-a-block with paranoid anti-Harper venom.  Of course neither Harris nor Maher would mention that Trudeau's campaign is inspired (if not actively advised) by Barack Obama's crew and that Obama has actually vowed to "fundamentally transform America".

Maher does, however, bring up the Media Party's recent phony outrage over alleged Conservative copyright abuse:

... Harper has been fighting to make Canada safe for attack ads.  ... Last week, leaked cabinet documents showed that he wants to change copyright law to allow political parties to use news footage in attack ads.

You'd expect that Maher, as a journalist, would know full well that under copyright fair dealing provisions political parties have long been allowed to use news footage in political ads.  What Maher could also be reasonably expected to know, but fail to mention (naturally), is that the real scandal in this is that the heads of CBC, CTV, Global and CityTV "news" organizations had been secretly colluding (conspiring) to thwart those provisions by mutually agreeing (forming a cartel) not to run Conservative ads using their news clips.

This was all in a corrupt effort to protect Justin Trudeau from his own idiotic musings and, while they were at it, attempt to smear Harper.  This is, apparently, their idea of objectivity and ethics in the news business.  The up-side is that now those CBC, CTV, Global and CityTV "news" executives face criminal charges, big fines and even jail time for violating the Competition Act.

Conservatives use paid "attack" ads, as do all the other parties.  Liberals use the Media Party's attack newspapers and attack TV networks full time, at no expense to themselves.

Corruption in the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) + nitwit mayors and useless media

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) is holding its annual conference in Vancouver this year.  This is the conference attended by Mayors and municipal staff to share ideas (collude) on stuff like, you know, "green" plans, "sustainability" initiatives and "climate change" strategies (aka wasting wads of cash ripped off from taxpayers).   Ezra Levant describes it as a lobby group that received $550 million in taxpayer funds from the federal government. 

Ezra also pointed out in this segment how and why corrupt thugs from FCM blacklisted a Montreal contractor from its tradeshow for having the temerity to advocate more efficient, open and honest tendering of municipal acquisition contracts:



And where's the Media Party?  One wonders whether or not this FCM corruption was a topic of discussion at the conference, at least informally among attendees.   Also, was the corruption in Quebec discussed?  There's real corruption in the FCM and real corruption in Quebec municipalities, so you might think the media would give their reporters an assignment to ask some relevant questions.   Well, there was no sign of it on my local CTV news last night.  The one and only topic they saw fit to cover was: "Rob Ford criticism bubbles up at Canadian mayors’ conference".  [The mayors were all atwitter, like giddy schoolgirls sharing hot gossip.  Note that one scumbag mayor, Frank Leonard of Saanich, BC, skated close to slander by suggesting Ford should be in jail.]   A worthless media sinks farther into irrelevance.

EU opposing Keystone XL to push its carbon markets

Keystone XL Opposition not based on Reason or Climate Change but on EU Carbon Markets:

EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard of Denmark says President Obama should veto Keystone XL to make good on his global warming rhetoric or institute a carbon tax. There is neither reason nor science to back up Hedegaard’s claims say Friends of Science.

... “People should be following the money in the argument against Keystone XL,” says Len Maier. “Large mission based investment firms have dumped trillions into carbon trades or green energy start-ups. They will lose their shirts if the climate scare and carbon trade markets dry up.”

Corruption in "clean" energy:

Maier points out that the EU carbon market was just barely resuscitated last month. In Italy the Mafia have been making hay in clean energy. According to an April 4 ABC News article, the police confiscated $1.7 billion in clean energy assets of the “Lord of the Wind” - Vito Nicastri - including 43 wind and solar energy companies, 98 properties and 66 bank accounts.

More climate fraud - "Hockey stick, broken again"

Powerline:

... effort by a group of climate alarmists headed by geologist Shaun Marcott to resurrect Michael Mann’s discredited hockey stick. The Marcott paper, as you would expect, received uncritical coverage in the liberal press....

... Steve McIntyre, who was principally responsible for showing that Mann’s original hockey stick was a fraud, has gone over Marcott’s data ... found that Marcott and his colleagues used previously published ocean core data, but have altered the dates represented by the cores, in some cases by as much as 1,000 years.

If this is not flat-out fraud–which, sadly, has come to typify the climate alarmism movement–then what is the justification for Marcott’s wholesale re-dating of samples?

... We are reminded of the NOAA/NCDC weather data on the U.S. ... Instead of reporting temperatures for prior decades, like the 1930s, as it did at the time and for many years thereafter, NOAA has now changed those temperatures downward to support the politically-motivated claim that the last years of the 20th century were the warmest ever.

... In short, the global warming movement is corrupt to the core.

... the publicly available evidence suggests that alarmist scientists have repeatedly committed fraud in research conducted and papers published that were paid for by United States taxpayers. It seems inconceivable that felonies have not been committed in connection with those frauds.

Update: Watts Up With That

Update (Mar 19th): Climate Audit

Not unexpectedly, William Connolley’s reaction to the problems with Marcott dating is the same sort of wilful obtuseness that characterized “professional” responses to Mann’s use of contaminated (and upside down) Korttajarvi sediments. Connolley pretended that this is nothing more than recalibration of radiocarbon dates.

 

Martha Hall Findlay's weak, cowardly apology

Martha Hall Findlay's apology for her supposedly "personal" attack on Justin Trudeau during Saturday's Liberal debate has been all over the news.

There was nothing especially wrong with Findlay's challenge to Trudeau. It was weak as "attacks" go but she raised a legitimate issue to someone who has been yapping non-stop about being a saviour of the middle-class (imitating Obama, no doubt).

Trudeau's typically phony, vapid response to Findlay:

"... I've been lucky in my life ... and what is important for me is to put everything that I've received, like each of us wants to, in service of my community. And that is what my identity is all about."

More like in service of Justin Trudeau's bank account. Findlay should have also attacked Trudeau on his highly questionable practice of soaking charities and schools $10K - $20K a pop for speaking engagements while on the taxpayers' dime as a sitting MP, often skipping parliament to do so.  Why didn't she?

Findlay's apology was unnecessary, if not cowardly. It makes her look weak - just another Trudeau suck-up - rather than a serious challenger.

Survey: Justin Trudeau tops list in trustworthiness

Vancouver Sun:

... One third of Vancouverites had confidence in Mulcair and four out of 10 trusted Trudeau— making him the poll’s most trusted politician ....

This survey was obviously taken before the revelations that Justin Trudeau has been soaking charities and schools $10K-$20K a pop for speaking engagements while sitting as an MP, skipping parliament to do so. 

Collecting speakers' fees while a sitting MP may be within the Ethics Commissioner's rules but most if not all other MP's speak to charities and schools all the time, at no charge, as part of their duty as parliamentarians. If Justin Trudeau's disgraceful practices fall within the ethics rulebook for MP's then that rulebook obviously needs a serious re-write.

Justin Trudeau cashing in at taxpayers' expense

Ezra's now had a look at the complete list of Justin Trudeau's speaking engagements and finds he's been skipping parliament to cash in (at between $10K and $20K a pop).



There's something very odious about parliamentarians collecting speaking fees.  Justin Trudeau, in particular, is a wet-behind-the-ears dilettante with nothing useful to offer by way of advice to anyone, not even students.  Why would any serious organization or corporation pay a substantial fee to hear him speak?  What's in it for them?  Access for legislative favors? 

This seems to be is a recipe for corruption.  If there aren't rules against it, there ought to be.

Updates: More, from Brian Lilley:



and Lorne Gunter:

... This strikes a lot of people as unethical. And in a moral sense I agree, particularly since Trudeau took most of that money from school boards, library associations, youth groups and charities. 

But the golden boy of Canada’s Liberal party has broken no Parliamentary rules. Those who have criticized Trudeau’s actions – including many MPs – need to work to change House of Commons’ regulations ...

Lorne hits on a very important question.  Why the hell are schoolboards and others, who ought to know better, wasting significant cash, especially taxpayers' cash, to hear Justin freaking Trudeau?

... the first question I asked myself when the details of Trudeau’s speaking credits became public on Thursday was: Who would pay to hear him talk in the first place? The man is a vapid tangle of feel-good platitudes about youth, potential, concern, caring and the future. His stump speeches on the leadership campaign trail these last few months have been almost entirely content-free....

Back to ethics:

There are three problems I have with the ethics of Trudeau’s paid speeches, though.
First, he often missed sitting days and votes in the Commons to be away giving talks, which means he put his own ambition and enrichment ahead of his duty to his constituents.

Second, while he claims not to have promoted himself as an MP to get more gigs, his average fee for the 63 speeches he gave before being elected was $10,936. For the 17 after he took office, it has been $16,323 – a bonus of nearly 50%.

And, finally, it is far too easy for organizations seeking influence in Ottawa to slip a prominent MP a few thousand for a half hour of pontificating. So the practice should be abolished.

Who's bankrolling the Vancouver mayor?? - Part II

Brian Hutchinson in the National Post:

... the mayor’s lead in polls is narrowing over challenger Suzanne Anton, a moderately right-of-centre city councillor.

But there’s a far more important matter in front of Mr. Robertson and his municipal slate, Vision Vancouver. It’s a campaign funding story, first raised a year ago by local researcher and writer Vivian Krause but ignored by most media, and avoided by the mayor himself. ...

... Ms. Anton waited until this last week of the municipal election campaign to raise the issue. In a press release Tuesday morning, the NPA [presented the facts rooted out by Vivian Krause and ended with] ... “Anton says these are important questions, not only because it is illegal for charities to donate to political parties, but also because it gives the appearance of foreign-funded charities trying to influence public policy. ‘This is a serious issue and the Mayor needs to come clean on his knowledge and involvement,’ says Anton.”

It's odd that there's been so little about this in the local media. And Suzanne Anton should have been hyping it for weeks.

See also this Straight article about the story and their interview with Vivian Krause where she answered an attempted smear by a Robertson supporter related to Tides executive Joel Solomon:

... Krause told the Straight over the phone that she's not making much money doing this research.

... "I'm not on anyone's dime," Krause claimed. "But I will say this. I am fighting for something here. It's not the big oil companies. It's not the NPA, and it's definitely not the Norwegian salmon-farming companies. It's the poor people in towns like Port Hardy on the north coast of Vancouver Island—which is the poorest part of our country—where there is up to 20 percent unemployment in those little towns. It's not boomtown Vancouver, like it has been here because of the Olympics. There are places that are hurting. They're the places where these billion-dollar foundations are shutting down what are actually fairly well-run industries. Yes, they have environmental impacts, but they're not the monsters that they're made out to be."

Who is bankrolling the Vancouver mayor??

Vivian Krause asks fair questions in the National Post and Vancouver Sun:

... Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson is no stranger to Tides Canada. In fact, he was a Tides Canada director from 2002 until 2004 when he entered politics with the NDP. The treasurer of Vision Vancouver, the political party that Mr. Robertson rode to power, is Martha Burton, who has been a senior advisor to Tides Canada. Mike Magee, the Chief of Staff at Vancouver City Hall, was also a senior advisor to Tides Canada (2002 to 2007).

... according to my calculations, during the course of five years of politics with both the NDP and Vision Vancouver, Gregor Robertson has received $400,000, including $340,000 in campaign finance for Vision Vancouver, from sources that are affiliated in various ways with two registered charities: the Endswell Foundation and Tides Canada.

There's lots more, including info on Robertson's real estate holdings on Cortes Island:

... Tides USA announced that it had purchased Hank's Beach, a 150-acre ocean-front property on Cortes Island. [which is happily (for Robertson) located right next to] ... 82 acres of ocean front that is owned or co-owned by one of Mayor Robertson's companies, Treedom Ventures Inc.

See also, Terence Corcoran's "mystery Mayor".

Veeerrrry interesting!

In a judicial 'recount' what do they 'count'?

In my riding of Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca the Conservative candidate Troy DeSouza lost the election to Liberal Keith Martin by 68 votes. DeSouza requested a judicial recount which is to be held tomorrow and Tuesday.

I've always assumed that every ballot was checked and re-tallied. Not so, apparently.

Joanne at True Blue was aghast to discover that in the "recount" done in Vancouver South (Dosanjh vs Wei Young) the presiding judge decided not to open all the poll boxes:

... Tory candidate Wai Young said she was disappointed because Associate Chief Justice Partrick [sic] Dohm, who was in charge of the recount, elected not to open all the ballot boxes .

Joanne notes that it seems "sampling is allowed." Quoting a Canadian Press report:

…The Canada Elections Act gives the judge presiding over a recount the option of recounting votes from some or all of the ballot boxes, along with spoiled and rejected ballots - 259 of them in the case of Vancouver South. The results of the recount are considered final …

If true, this sucks, big-time! It's not a 'recount', but a somewhat arbitrary 'estimate' that's possibly less accurate than the original count. With contests this close (22 votes) unless they check and recount all the ballots there's no way to know with a certainty that satisfies the losing candidate. Not much wonder Wai Young says she is "disappointed".

There have already been suggestions of Elections Canada bias. This non-counting 'recount' can only further diminish voters' confidence in the process. Inevitably questions arise as to a judge's integrity, party affiliation, etc.

I'll be watching to see how the 'recount' goes in my riding tomorrow.

More at Climbing Out of the Dark, Crux of the Matter, Unambiguous and elsewhere.

Update (Oct 27): Blue Like You, sda, DAWG, Jack's Newswatch, Maclean's. Sda commenter Oz provides a relevant quote from a great champion of freedom:

"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." ~Joseph Stalin

Upperdate(27 Oct) EJDF Recount confirms Martin win:

... Conservative challenger Troy DeSouza called off the recount after it became
apparent that the number of disputed ballots would not bridge the gap between
him and Martin.

... The Times Colonist won a precedent-setting decision to attend and report on the judicial recount. It's believed to be the first time a media organization has been allowed to witness the Elections Canada proceedings, which have previously been held in secret.

And there's a little more here.

UpperUpperdate (Oct 28): The Times Colonist provides the anatomy of the EJDF Martin/DeSouza recount. I still don't understand why DeSouza terminated the recount. According to the story: "Around 5:20 PM, with all the votes counted...". So why not let the the hard work of the 100 or so volunteers "count" as the final result?
More at Blue Like You.

Election: "The Red-Green Show"

The Dion/May collusion story is heating up. Here's Joanne at Blue Like You:

The question has now become: What exactly was the deal between Stephane Dion and Elizabeth May? Was it merely a simple pact agreeing not to run an opposing candidate from each of their parties in their respective ridings?

... The interesting thing here is that Stephane Dion has never come right out and denied this rumour. He’s talked around them, but never directly said that it didn’t happen. Just yesterday, Jane Taber challenged him on CTV’s QP. He evaded the question.

... My question is, why isn’t this situation being investigated by Elections Canada?

Good question, Joanne!

More at A Dog Named Kyoto who points to Bourque Newswatch (Oct 12th):

Meanwhile, Grit insider Ray Heard, perhaps the first Liberal to demand publicly many months ago that Dion should resign for sheer incompetence, is telling friends tonight that this news on Bourque of the May-orchestrated Green Shift to the Liberals comes as no surprise. "Its all part of a secret deal between Dion and May. But what maddens me is that, when I publicly endorsed my friend, Peter Kent, the Conservative in Thornhill because he deserves a seat in Ottawa, I was denounced as a traitor and worse by fellow-Liberals. Surely, if Dion can endorse May and persuade her to get her voters to defect to the Liberals at the eleventh hour, I have the same right to ask Grits to vote for Kent....This, friends, is another Liberal farce that will end in tragedy. I shall be the first (admittedly sorely jaundiced) Liberal to call for Dion's head when the votes are in late Tuesday."