July's Morons of the Month

There were some big winners this month, but let's start with a fairly local pest...

• Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, Councillor/Deputy Mayor Doug Ford, for not only being exposed as totally out of it when they claimed there was a lot of wasteful spending at the City of Toronto (turns out there isn't), but being so bound and determined to balance the books that they are cutting services and increasing taxes, despite promising not to in last year's election. Of particular stupidity here -- besides an incident where the Mayor flipped off a mother and child, when they pointed out he shouldn't be driving while using a cell phone -- are proposed user fees for walking through parks (I'm totally serious), and closing several of Toronto's libraries despite them signing out millions of items in the last year alone. Those supporting the latter, claim that they no longer serve a purpose that can't be met by the private sector, evidently unaware that there are a lot of poor people in Toronto!


• The Democratic and Republican Parties, for continuing to bash their heads against the wall, instead of doing ANYTHING about the fact that the American government is about to owe more than its allowed amount of money. This particularly goes to various conservatives who are totally against the super-rich paying their fair share of taxes (despite the obvious need to generate income... and the fact that even companies that pay no income taxes at all, are moving American jobs overseas), and to the Tea Party lunatics who actually insist that defaulting on debt IS A MYTH. Um... how about they ask the MANY unemployed Americans that they claim to represent?


• Sun Media, for backing out of the Ontario Press Council, because they think that the regulatory board is "too politically correct". Since a recent smear attack/interview on little-watched Sun News has set a record for the number of complaints lodged with Canada's version of the FCC, I can only guess that "politically correct" is now being used to describe "telling the truth" and "not kicking someone below the belt".

Now, onto the meat and potatoes.

• Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks, and News Corporation, for their part in the now-infamous British phone hacking scandal. Not only have the far-right tabloid wranglers been accused of (and often charged with) hacking the voice mails of celebrities, but they've apparently tampered with the voice mails of several British politicians (and leaking whatever they hear about, like what then-PM Gordon Brown's son was sick with), eavesdropped on the Royal Family, hacked the phones of dead soldiers and terrorist victims, and erased voice mails belonging to at least one murdered schoolgirl, whose killer remains at large. In other words, they have been accused of MAJOR felonies -- often with the assistance of British leaders and policemen, incidentally (the scandal has cost at least two top cops their jobs, and shaken the Prime Minister's Office). Not only that, but Murdoch's staff and their supporters claim that this has been MADE UP, and they did nothing wrong!


• The (hopefully few) supporters of Norway terrorist Anders Brevik, for openly praising the actions of a man who killed MANY children, but often trying to blame it on Brevik's victims. I personally have seen countless far-right pundits blame the mass murder on Muslims and liberals (who were the intended targets), which is akin to blaming the Jews for the Holocaust. Particularly disgusting was Glenn Beck stating on his radio show, that the children at the camp run by Norway's Labour Party -- a party founded to fight the Nazis, incidentally -- IS JUST LIKE THE HITLER YOUTH. Real classy, asshole.

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.

Harper's thugs slander Jack Layton

In case there was any doubt, that Sun Media is nothing more than a Canadian attempt at emulating Faux News, they've done this.

Apparently, sometime in the late nineties, NDP Leader Jack Layton -- on a huge wave of popular support, right now -- is said to have visited a rub-and-tug parlour. This is according to a supposed ex-cop, who is not identified in the article.

Now, it doesn't take a genius to smell something fishy here. Less than 48 hours before an election that Layton is expected to do very well in, an extremely biased tabloid paper -- one favouring the current corrupt Prime Minister -- JUST NOW leaks a very damaging story, with little to no proof. Even Conservative supporters have commented on the page, that this is more than a bit convenient.

I've written to the "reporter" in question, and the Sun's editor-in-chief, asking them to either prove the allegations or immediately retract it. If they don't, I intend on taking it to the Ontario Press Council.

Sun News Fail