Vote, Ontario!

April's Morons of the Month

With the election dominating Canadian news this past month, I'm going to just get this out of the way...

Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party, for (among other things) their repeated attacks on Canadian voters. This is not merely rhetoric -- for those who don't know, the ReformaTories have taken to spying on people who are pre-registered for his campaign stops, and having the RCMP (illegally) eject them for anything in their Facebook histories that doesn't totally fit the Conservative line. The offending criteria include having casually posed for pictures with Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff (and presumably other opposition leaders/candidates), having attended other parties' rallies in the last few years, and even having been in environmental groups.

In addition to this, their candidate in Guelph (Marty Burke) apparently had his communications director (and University of Guelph majordomo) Michael Sona disrupt a legitimate advance poll and allegedly try to STEAL A BALLOT BOX, all because they discovered that someone at Elections Canada had jumped the gun and held the poll without getting full authorization first. (see story) To date, no charges have been laid in the incident -- and no evidence has surfaced to support Conservative claims of partisan materials being circulated at the poll. Of course, Guelph Campus Conservatives initially boasted about this incident, until Elections Canada ruled that the poll was operated properly and thus the votes all counted. At that point -- particularly after Harper claimed to support EC's ruling -- any and all comments GCC's members made on Facebook against the poll, disappeared.

None of this, by the way, touches on the many cases of vandalism against Liberal and NDP supporters... or how the Conservatives very rarely attend all-candidates events (like electoral debates)... or how Stephen Harper has the nerve to continue claiming that Canadians don't care about this election, or the record-making contempt ruling, even after Canadians tuned in to the leaders' debates and attended advance polls IN RECORD NUMBERS.

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Still on the subject of the election, Sun News (aka "Fox News North"), for proving less than 12 hours into its broadcasting career that it is a Harper propaganda station that doesn't give a damn about really reporting news. For example, on the first day of its rather pathetic programming, pundit Charles Adler claimed repeatedly on his show that the Harper government was overthrown over its budget... Even though the budget never made it to a vote, and everyone paying any attention to the election at all knows that Harper was overthrown over contempt.

Then there was their overtly ripe smear attack on rising-star Jack Layton of the NDP. Two days ago, Sun Media exclusively "broke" a story from an anonymous ex-cop claiming that Jack Layton was found naked in a Toronto massage parlour, in the late 1990s. Since nothing in this story suggest that Layton was arrested -- or even did anything illegal -- the cop in question sat on this "story" for the eight years that Layton was leader of the NDP, and only decided to come out with it on an extremely biased tabloid channel in the final days of an election that Layton could very well win... well, even Conservative supporters agree that this smells fishy (Harper's cult, on the other hand, just takes this as gospel).

Incidentally, since this information was leaked without the permission of the Toronto Police, they are having the OPP investigate it -- and Layton has implied that he may take legal action of his own, once the election is over.

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Donald Trump -- trying to be the Republican candidate for President, next year -- for reviving the Birther nonsense over Barack Obama's birth certificate. Keep in mind, that even GLENN BECK thinks that this is a stupid obsession. Anyway, when Obama's long-form birth record was released -- which would be totally unnecessary for any other president -- adding to the long list of documents explicitly proving that he was born in Hawaii, Trump took credit for its release... and then went after Obama's schooling, for some reason.

Rumours that Trump then demanded proof that Hawaii is a state, cannot be confirmed -- which I hope is a good sign -- but for looking like a complete racist idiot, he's been attacked by both sides of the political spectrum. When even staunch Republicans are embarrassed by this guy, I hope it's safe to say that his presidential aspirations are dead.

Jack Layton and the NDP, the Rising Stars

According to many recent polls, the New Democratic Party is overtaking the Liberals for second place, in this election. I'm the first to acknowledge that polls should not be treated as absolutes -- after all, they did predict a majority government for Kim Campbell, whose PC party was all but wiped out a few weeks later. However, this is very intriguing news, to say the least.

While I have questioned Jack Layton's judgment lately, I have to admit, it may be paying off here. He's also dogged enough, and distinct enough from Michael Ignatieff (and Stephen Harper) to potentially make life very difficult for Harper if the Conservatives do win another minority. However, if Harper manages to get a majority, then all of this is moot; for all intents and purposes, the ReformaTories will have absolute power, and I don't doubt for a minute that they would use it to crush the opposition into dust.

Then again, this might be academic in a whole other way: one of the reasons polls are flawed, is because they rarely sample young voters in a significant way -- and as we've seen lately, they are VERY interested in this election. I firmly believe that after Stephen Harper's attacks on student voters, he has kicked up a hornet's nest that will hand his head to him on a platter.

Harper vs. Student Voters

Autopsy on the First PM debate

The Canadian federal election, had its English-language leaders' debate, last night. According to those who actually WATCHED the thing, Harper was calm but also visibly irritated at even being there (plus making some other remarks I will destroy in a minute), Ignatieff said the right things but was quite bland, Duceppe took up space, and Layton seemed more focused on attacking Ignatieff than Harper (even if he did make some good zingers at Harper's expense too).

I'm going to comment more on Layton in the next Bored on the Corner episode, but what was the point of using a MADE UP statistic about Ignatieff's attendance in Parliament? First of all, Ignatieff -- while still more absent than the other leaders, which is a big problem -- is there quite a bit more than the 30% that Layton is claiming. Second, why was Layton even attacking Ignatieff in the first place? I apologize in advance, for making my next video redundant, but ISN'T LAYTON TRYING TO BE THE PRIME MINISTER? What's the point of going after THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION? Not only is this a total waste of time, but you can make a really good argument that Layton just stole enough votes from the Liberals, to put Harper back in power on May 2nd!

Which leads me to Harper's continued asshattery... During the debate, he had the nerve to flat out DEMAND that Canadians give the Conservatives, a majority government.

Um, why?

After five years of messing up Canada's finances, doing nothing about the economy, of disrespecting Canada's institutions, of vilifying even common Canadian voters if they give a thought to the "wrong" party, lying to the public, obstructing the public, wasting BILLIONS of our dollars on totally useless projects, and quite literally breaking the law on several occasions... you have the SHEER GALL to point a gun to our heads and order us to give you even more power??

By the way, if you're wondering, the consequence that Harper is threatening, is yet another election, in a short amount of time. Leaving aside for a minute, that this is coming from a guy who's been in CONSTANT election mode, since becoming the Leader of the Opposition (and is single-handedly to blame for the constant elections, due to his corrupt behaviour)... Harper's threat won't necessarily come true. In a Parliamentary democracy, if a freshly-elected government, doesn't have the confidence of the house, the Governor General can and very often will just ask the opposition to form the new government instead. And while it's true that our current GG (David Johnson) was appointed by Harper, he is also a constitutional expert who has already refuted Harper's claims that coalitions are illegal and undemocratic.

So in conclusion... if Stephen Harper wants a majority from Canadians, he needs to earn it; Michael Ignatieff needs to learn how to think on his feet and be engaging on live television; and Jack Layton needs to remember what the hell is most important to Canadians (and what side he's really supposed to be on).

Harper's Election Blunders

Stephen Harper is a Tool

I know that's not my wittiest title -- or description of Stephen Harper -- but in this case I think it's very apt.

Yesterday, Stephen Harper decided to schmaltz up his pathetic election campaign, by singing "Imagine" with the girl who went viral for singing "Born This Way" (and got Tweeted by Lady Gaga, etc.). As if it wasn't already lame -- and hypocritical -- that a lifeless, pro-corporate, war-mongering Christian fundamentalist, is claiming to be a fan of innovative, non-materialist, peace-promoting non-Christians like The Beatles... Harper also claims to be a fan of Lady Gaga.

Now, at best this already looks like a very cheap and blatant ploy to con young voters -- ironically, one of the only things that Harper IS transparent about. But Harper's statements make it clear that he's -- once again -- lying through his teeth. For example...

" I hear Mrs. Gaga’s words – ‘Just dance, gonna be okay/da-da, doo-doo/Dance, dance, dance, just dance’"

LADY GAGA'S NOT MARRIED. I'm not a fan of hers, but even I know that. Why? BECAUSE I FUCKING PAY ATTENTION TO CURRENT EVENTS!

*sigh*

"“Bad Romance”: “Makes me think of the spectre of a Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition. Have I mentioned lately how bad that romance would be for Canada? Because it would be a bad romance for Canada. FYI.”

Oh for fuck's sake he's STILL on about that? Even after that blew up in his face? And the far-right says LIBERALS are stupid!

"Don’t really understand the meaning of this song, but the wonderful refrain — ‘Can’t read my/Can’t read my/No, he can’t read my poker face’ — speaks to me, deeply."

Ummm... I'm being Punk'd here, aren't I? Seriously??

Ok, Tiny Stephen, if you're reading this... the song is about being bisexual. I'm not kidding around -- Gaga herself has said that this is about trying to hide that she's attracted to women. So not only does this show that Harper has NO IDEA what he's talking about, but the irony is that he and his party are notorious homophobes, and Harper claims to love a song that is celebrating being anything BUT straight.

PRETENTIOUSNESS FAIL

Harper's Stupidity

Local Constipation

Indecision '09

Election Bullshit

By now, not only is the American presidential election pretty much in high gear, but the Canadian government is making noises about wanting to pull the plug on itself and call an impromptu election (the excuse -- I mean, reason -- being that supposedly the opposition has made Parliament dysfunctional; in actuality, it's the government that's been doing that by muzzling and threatening the opposition every chance it could get).

I realize that elections are a key part of democracy, and that there's only so much that can be done to stop leaders from overriding their own laws, or to stop the kind of stupid infighting that we're seeing in the states (ie. McCain having a rather patronizing view of Barack Obama, especially considering that his newly minted V.P. nominee is a young and inexperienced governor... hmmm, sound familiar?).

In my view, governments who break election laws, block any judicial investigations, make a mockery of free elections... in general, have contempt for civil process, should automatically forfeit their stake in the election. In other words, Stephen Harper should be tossed on his ass immediately, and McCain should give up the Republican nomination to another person. But then again, that's because I have a low tolerance for stupid bullshit. That's because I was raised to have a mind of my own, and to behave like a mature adult in public.