This And That

The start of a new week inspires me to look back on the one past; thanks to an array of editorial cartoonists, it was a week not kind to our outgoing (one hopes) prime minister:











Government for all Canadians, not just the wealthy, offers this intriguing clip from the past. Keep your eyes on the late Jim Flaherty:

Watch Jim Flaherty's reaction when Steve tells the House of Commons that Nigel Wright didn't tell Ray Novak about the Duffy bribe.

Posted by Government for all Canadians, not just the wealthy on Sunday, August 23, 2015

Lest Angry White Guy be forgotten, The Star's Heather Mallick offers her views in today's edition:

#AngryCon, identified by the Star as “Earl Cowan,” was filmed in a tan suit, white shirt and, on a hot day, undershirt. His hair a limp version of Harper’s, he accessorized with a calculator watch and a Doug Ford for Mayor button, but no wedding ring. If there’s any man who needs a wife, it’s Earl. He has no one to say, “Earl that’s nuts,” which is one reason he watched himself shout in a high-pitched voice that the reporters were “lying pieces of s—t” and then accused them, a propos of nothing, of cheating on their taxes.

And a Star letter-writer has this suggestion on how to deal with the unstable volatile Cowan:

The now known profanities shouter, Earl Cowan, should immediately be investigated by the Canada Revenue Agency because he, in all probability, must have been cheating on his income tax returns. He thinks it’s okay to do that — everybody does that, and Duffy has done nothing wrong.

Satendra Ganjoo, Toronto

UPDATED: Now Trending

Following yesterday's sterling advertisement for the Harper base, the satirical publication The Beaverton decided to have some fun:

TORONTO - During a campaign stop reporters asking questions about the Duffy scandal were cursed at by a Harper supporter, before he was removed and offered a seat in the Senate.

“I spoke to my current Chief of Staff, Ray Novak, about making this problem go away,” said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, when asked later about the Senate appointment. Harper further elaborated, “Considering after the 2011 election I appointed Mike Duffy to the Senate in exchange for him doing ‘work’ in the press, this just kind of made sense.”

Harper then clarified that he had no knowledge of any conversations with Novak, and “rejected the premise” that he had said the opposite mere minutes previous.

The latest Senator from Etobicoke has refused to offer any identification outside of the prominent “Doug Ford Mayor” campaign button on his jacket. Following his nomination to the senate, he is expected to chair a committee on how “the media are all lying pieces of shit”.

At a later campaign stop, Conservative spokesperson Kory Teneycke apologized to journalists for the outburst, adding “If you think that guy was bad, you should see the supporters that we screen out.”

It would seem prudent for all future innocent bystanders at Harper rallies to wear protective apparel to guard againt the spewing of infected saliva.

As well, perhaps angry white guy can put an end to this abuse by the Senate, as reported by Buzzfeed.

In a March 2013 memo to Stephen Harper, his chief of staff Nigel Wright and other senior staffers raged that Conservative Senators were too independent and had recommended policies that were not pre-approved by the Prime Minister’s Office.

Imagine, the bought-and-paid-for Red Chamber Conservatives thinking they could act independently! A sobering second thought indeed.

UPDATE: Angry white guy now has a name: Earl Cowan. When contacted by the Toronto Star, he had this to say:

“If I wrote anything for the Star,” he added, “the issue would be: is or is not the Toronto media a piece of s---. Excuse me, a lying piece of s---. I’m forgetting my own lines here . . . That’s the issue. That’s the only issue.”