Thought For The Day

 In light of a damning report, this speaks much truth, eh?

H/t Toronto Star

Berated, Belittled And ..... Brutalized?

 It is beginning to look like our erstwhile and volatile Governor General, Julie Payette, did not limit herself to verbal abuse of staff. CBC reports the following:

Complainants who took part in an independent probe into claims of a toxic workplace culture at Rideau Hall claim former governor general Julie Payette's verbal harassment of staff crossed over into instances of physical contact, CBC News has learned.

The claims of physical contact were reported in testimony given to Quintet Consulting during interviews and will be included in the final report, multiple sources said.

Several sources with direct knowledge of the final report say Payette's workplace behaviour went beyond screaming at, belittling and publicly humiliating employees — and included unwelcome physical contact that caused some participants in the review to feel threatened.

As has been noted by others, the appointment of Payette calls into question both the judgement of Prime Minister Trudeau and the integrity of the vetting process. Let's hope due deliberation is given before choosing Canada's next representative of the Queen.

 

Summing Up The Last Four Years Under Trump

 Randy Rainbow does it with panache:

More On Our National Embarrassment

 I recently posted about our national embarrassment known as Conrad Black, sycophant extraordinaire.

The following, by editorial cartoonist Michael de Adder, was tweeted by Neil MacDonald, who observes.

And a grateful Black is now vigorously pushing back against any idea that the attack on the Capitol was violent. Just high spirited patriots.

 

Oh, The Insensate Crowd

While we can take some comfort that the kind of madness that grips the United States is absent in Canada, we would be wrong to think there aren't seeds of it here:

 Toronto police have arrested three participants in two separate anti-lockdown protests downtown Saturday afternoon, the same day the province saw 3,056 new COVID-19 cases and a record number of 420 patients in intensive care units.

Videos surfacing on social media show hundreds of protestors gathered at Nathan Phillips Square and Yonge-Dundas Square defying public health measures and denouncing the provincial stay-at-home mandate.

Below is one sample of the insensate crowd, mostly unmasked and gathered closely together to protest the abrogation of their 'freedom' to spread disease. 

White, Affluent AND Being Held To Account?

 What has happened to America? You decide.

Our Own Rudy Guiliani

I'm sure I am but one of millions who have followed  the antics of Rudy Guiliani, deriving bittersweet amusement from his addled but staunch defence of his master, Donald Trump, who has reportedly now turned against his lapdog and is refusing to pay his legal bill. 

Standard operating procedure in Trumpland.

But Canadians envious of the dark comic relief afforded by the hapless Giuliani need not despair. As Bob Hepburn writes, we have our own version in Canada: Conrad Black.

Not to be outdone by Giuliani, Black has in recent weeks kicked up his loud, long-held support for Trump and now ranks among the president’s most fawning loyalists.

Like Giuliani, the former Canadian business mogul and ex-U.S. convict has appeared on American talk shows spreading the same conspiracy theories and misinformation about the election, including discredited allegations of widespread voter fraud on the part of Democrats.

Stunningly, in the aftermath of last week’s riots on Capitol Hill, Black continues to heap praise on Trump.

 He insists on conservative talk shows that Trump did nothing wrong in the lead-up to the Capitol Hill insurrection, that the rioters “were not Trump supporters” and that top Republicans who are now distancing themselves from Trump are “repulsive” and “disgraceful.”

 For years, Black has stuck with Trump, from sex scandals to dog whistle appeals to white supremacists. He capped it with a 2018 book titled “Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other.”

And Black has reaped a rich reward for his sycophantic servitude. 

Trump pardoned him in 2019. Black was convicted in 2007 of fraud and obstruction of justice and served 3½ years in a Florida prison before being released and deported to Canada.

In 2020, Black continued to fawn over Trump, writing last month in The Hill, a top U.S. political website, that Trump’s record in office “has been a tour de force.”

Shamelessly, and without any apparent moral or intellectual (despite his propensity for pretentious language designed to hide his paucity of real thought) compass, Black has supported the risible Trump fantasy that he lost the election, and even worse, mocks the seditious events last week at the Capitol building.

On Jan. 6, the day of the riots, Black retweeted a Twitter post that appeared to mock the damage and frightened lawmakers. “The damage to the Capitol was really quite shocking,” the retweeted comment read. “Very disturbing picture below showing that plastic water bottles were littered on floor of Capitol, rather than being properly placed in recycling. One can hardly blame congressmen for abandoning premises.”

Trump has had a series of lapdogs before and during his presidency. It is to our shame that some of them (are you listening, Brian Mulroney?) have been Canadian in origin.