A Leading Exemplar of The CBC's Policy Of Conservative Appeasement

Thanks to Montreal Simon, DESMOG CANADA, Press Progress and others for alerting us to the true extent of Rex Murphy's egregious conflict of interest in his role as CBC commentator.

Murphy is yet another sad but solid indication of the policy of appeasement the Corporation has adopted toward the Harper cabal.

My own complaint to the CBC about this disgraceful state of affairs is still awaiting a response. When I filed it a couple of weeks ago, this is what I received from their ombudsman:

I write to acknowledge receipt of your email. The first step in the process is to share your complaint with the relevant programmers, who have the right and responsibility to respond. I have therefore shared your email with Jennifer McGuire, General Manager and Editor in Chief of CBC News. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you may ask me to review the matter.

Programmers are asked to try to reply within twenty working days.

Sincerely,

Esther Enkin
CBC Ombudsman
ombudsman@cbc.ca
www.cbc.ca/ombudsman

I will post the response if and when I receive it.

A Telling Distinction

I Have Missed Him

But he's back! My favourite crazed evangelical, and I hope yours, Pat Robertson, is once again making 'newsworthy' statements. Watch below as this preacher of the preposterous, this evangelical of the extreme, holds forth on yet another topic from his prodigious repertoire of 'expertise'.

A Guest Post From ThinkingManNeil

A frequent contributor of commentary, ThinkingManNeil, responding to my post earlier today, left an insightful and incisive analysis of Andrea Horwath. In order to provide wider readership than is usually the case with readers' comments, I am presenting it as a separate entry. As well, at the end I am providing a link to someone else who also has some interesting thoughts on the ambitious Andrea.

Not only do we of the poor and working classes not have electoral presence in the eyes of most ambitious pols, some of us can look kinda icky next to a designer togged prospective premier who may be earning $200K+ a year.

Oh, she'll most assuredly come a-courting us, kissing babies and showing up at run down schools in the Junction and trying to rally autoworkers and shut out Hamilton steelworkers for support, but then come the invites from the Granite Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and the CCCE to give hour long talks over expensive catered lunches on why the tax burden needs to be lifted from the (upper) middle class, Business, and those poor, downtrodden, misunderstood and under appreciated Job Creators.

She'll harken to the neo-liberal siren song of the Drummond Report (a report written by a wealthy, TD bank economist who drives a nice car and lives in a big, comfy, pricey house that tells poor and disabled people in Ontario how they should live on even less than they do now and be damned grateful they get anything, the lazy bums...), and go ahead with the evisceration of Ontario's social safety net, education, healthcare - Harris the Horrible's Common Sense Revolution with an orange NDP glow.

And when OCAP shows up on her Queen's Park doorstep, pleading for the lessers, she'll see to it that the black BDU'd OPP veterans of the G20 protests give them a respectful bum's rush off of her neatly manicured lawn.

Oh, Tommy, Ed, and Stephen, where are you when we need you?!?

And here is the link I promised.

Andrea Again

Sorry for the provincialism of some of my recent posts, but I can't quite ignore political hypocrisy on any level. Three recent entries have attempted to chronicle the sad devolution of Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Howath from that of principled politician to political opportunist; with the tantalizing prospect of power, she has forsaken the NDP's traditional constituencies of the poor and working class (sorry, I guess you folks just don't have a strong enough electoral presence) for her new BFF, small business and 'the middle class.'

Quite properly, and much to their credit, The Toronto Star is not giving her eely performances an easy ride. Today's editorial, entitled Ontario NDP’s Andrea Horwath keeps ducking hard choices offers this view:

...with the strong possibility of a spring election, Horwath should be talking about her plans for job growth, handling the province’s finances, and a solution to the gridlock that’s costing the Toronto and Hamilton region some $6 billion a year.

Instead, Horwath cobbled together several hundred words over the weekend to tell Premier Kathleen Wynne what she doesn’t want from the government, with nothing at all devoted to the NDP’s own proposals for prosperity – which as far as anyone knows so far don’t exist. Keep this up, and the NDP leader will be exposed as the kind of clichéd politician who seeks power without having any idea what to do with it.

And it is the latter that troubles me most. Howarth is doing nothing to dispel the Star's lacerating assessment of her as one seeking power only for its own sake. We have enough such blights on the political landscape already.

But then again, maybe her problems lie elsewhere. Perhaps it is time to replace what ostensibly passes as her chief source of political wisdom for one with more substance:

Too Good Not To Share

This one's for you, young Tim.



H/t Union Thugs

UPDATED: An Invitation To The Dance Party

What dance party is that, you ask? Why, the one being hosted by the leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party whose name, it is rumoured, is in the process of being rejigged into the New Dance Party.

At least, that is how it appears to this political observer. As I opined yesterday, Ms. Horwath seems to be in the midst of an identity crisis, at least if her silence on key progressive issues such as the minimum wage is any indication. But perhaps that crisis is to be short-lived, given the letter she has sent to Premier Kathleen Wynne which included the following declaration:

“I will not support any new taxes, tolls or fees that hit middle-class families".

Funny thing about that much sought-after middle class, which, by some estimates, encompasses those with a family income ranging from $40,000 to $125,000. While no one would suggest greater taxation for those at the lower end, why rule out even greater progressive taxation for those in the middle to upper range?

The Star's Martin Regg Cohn has this to say about Andrea's metamorphisis:

After five years as leader, she has repurposed the NDP from a progressive movement to a populist brand, appealing to the broad middle class ahead of the working class and the welfare underclass.

As Cohn points out, this should surprise few:

Horwath’s about-faces on traditional party orthodoxy turned heads during the last election. The NDP echoed the anti-tax Tories in demonizing the HST, which major unions had defended as a way to fund social programs. Horwath’s surprise campaign pledge to lower taxes on gasoline, and her latest opposition to most transit taxes, have exasperated the environmental movement (most of her Toronto-area MPPs have signed a pro-transit petition, but not Horwath). Unionists pushing for a new public pension fear she will resist any mandatory plan that imposes premiums on her new-found small business allies.

The reason is obvious, of course: political opportunism. Put succinctly, as Cohn expresses it: She likes to win.

So in order to perfect her dalliance with a new constituency, I recommend Ms Horwath take dance instruction from the experts, represented below in two distinct styles:





UPDATE: Premier Wynne anwers Horwath's ultimatum.