I’ve covered celebrity sex crimes trials, murder trials and even terror plot trials but as far as Ottawa court coverage goes, nothing is bigger for the MSM than Duffy. Is that fair?
I’ve covered celebrity sex crimes trials, murder trials and even terror plot trials but as far as Ottawa court coverage goes, nothing is bigger for the MSM than Duffy. Is that fair?
The sad effing truth in our “gottcha” age is you reap what you sow. We’ll see what the election holds for us but can the Conservatives seriously wonder why some of their scorched earth policies have come back to bite them? I used to support them as a person who genuinely believed they would be the purveyors of a new politics…I guess I was partially correct. I now support them only because I fear the alternative, but I am 58 and my daughter’s generation are having a hard time supporting many of the policies of today (C51 anyone?).
I do not believe all this police state stuff is going to wind up in a good place. When you empower people to be above the law, don’t be surprised if they become worse than what you seek to prevent. It has only been the outcome in every case in history, but ours are different somehow?
There is a lot of showboating going on by the prosecutor. The more I read the rules, the more obvious it becomes that Duffy didn’t break them. I don’t know if it’s possible to convict him of anything. Maybe 100 Senators with 2 residences received an allowance for Ottawa housing. I am not sure why Duffy should not be entitled simply because he already owned the home. He had a home and a constituency in PEI and the Senate in Ottawa. I am not sure there is a good reason to deny him a housing allowance much less charge him with fraud.
The Liberals and their flacks are desperate for a scandal, and if this is the best they can do, then Stephen Harper has led a remarkably clean government.
Something the Liberals should try sometime.
I guess I am just curious of Duffy & his relationship to an Ottawa television Production???? He may be forced to perjure himself, or the prosecution will give the CBC another back eye from the past. The MSM may wish they had not rolled over that rock..
The definition of a business Expense is clear, what is not clear is why the Senate didn’t just charge back those costs to the Conservative party…Maybe the trips where self-approved by the Senators without a billing client. It would still be a Business Expense, but one they would have to eat.. Nothing Criminal
The sad truth is the “scorched earth policies” as opposed to what? First of all I don’t know about the penalties being paid by the offspring of the early Baby Boomers and the late entry Boomers. You know the “Me Generation-now called the Zoomers” because gosh all mighty the “Me People” have all the money to inherit from the “Greatest Generation” who fought WWII and saved to educate their children so they could act the elites.
The elites are the Media Monsters like the CBC ignoring the the sex “peccadillos” of their cohort of special people, happy as possibly can be for the opportunity to deflect the legitimate criticism of what has been provided over the last 50 years of Librano/Progressive foolishness.
No Peter vent your spleen on someone else, unless your comment is just the new meme for the Liberal Party of Canada/Ontario trolls, both the paid ones and the wish I could be just like Mansbridge/Ghomeshi/Levin etc.
Duffy was a journalist and a conservative so this is pure retribution from the other 99% of journalists who are Socialists/Progressives/Liberals.
And since he was appointed by Harper, the 99% of the Canadian Press Corps afflicted with terminal Harper Derangement Syndrome are just salivating at taking down a Harper appointee.
Let the 41 day gong show roll on. Seems odd the Americans can try and convict the Boston Bomber in a 14 day trial.
The Canadian MSM is putting the Conservatives on trial through the “entitled” slothful Senate appointee and the Sleazy Senate appointee of theirs. Senate appointments would likely have better success if they were drawn at random from the phone book, although, so would most MPs. The MSM should likely be regarded with less esteem than those whose trials they swarm to “report” on.
This is nothing more than a tempest in a tea-pot, stirred and shaken by the liberal left media, especially the CBC. Where was the outrage from the media when the Adscam/Gomery inquiry was going on? Where was Mansbridge when Chretian said what’s a million here or there? Where was the media when the gun registry exceeded its so-called budget? Where was the media when the Liberals cancelled the helicopter replacement program? Where was the media when the British sub conversion exceeded its budget? These projects were all taxpayers money but because they happened under a Liberal government there was never a peep out of the ‘boot-lickers’, even though the $90K of Duffy’s pales in comparison to any of the above. Hypocrites all! If the CBC cannot deliver the news in an unbiased manner without opinion then it is no longer a news organization and should therefore be de-funded. There will be far more taxpayers in Canada influenced by Ben Levin and his sex-ed program than by Mike Duffy and the CBC couldn’t even cover his arraignment. Yes, Hypocrites all.
@ MikeSr & Fred
You can bet this is the circling media sharks salivating for some payback.
Duffy, in the media’s view, is responsible for sinking the LIEberals at the trough;
now they are sharpening the daggers.
The media attack dogs are just yelping at the leash to get the genus “Rodentia Lieberalis” back to gnawing at your wallet.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group ‘True North’
Since the majority victory we have had ample opportunity to act like Conservatives, instead we have behaved like neo-cons. Might does not make right. Shouting louder than your opponent does not make you right. Our conservative revolution has failed because it was betrayed from within.
There was a time when our tent was bigger than today. There was a time when many voices were heard…now kowtowing to the PMO is the path to fame and glory, Heaven help the MP who has the courage to stand up and speak their mind. At one time I had met with at least half the caucus…was invited to lunch in the Parliamentary dining room on budget day 2006…didn’t find much dead wood. Now I wonder…still beats plan “B” by a mile though. I’ll work for my MP, serve the Board and do what I can, but I am concerned about the future on the current path
We all remember the media furor over Liberal Senators Raymond Lavigne, who went to jail, and Mac Harb, who had to repay $231,000 for his Senate (over) expenses. No? Hmm, double standard? Just a thought, but isn’t Mike Duffy, not the PM and his government, on trial?
http://cotmblog.com/2015/04/08/reminder-to-all-harper-haters-pm-his-govt-not-on-trial-duffy-is/
For the MSM, Duffy himself is only a means to an end. The MSM obsession with this trial is rooted in a fixation on damaging Harper.
However the news is not good for the HDS sufferers in the PPG:
1. To horrified gasps from the MSM, the RCMP decided, without condition, not to charge Nigel Wright. Grief counselors have only recently left the editorial rooms of CBC/Torstar/Globe/NP.
2. The opening statements and discovery process has shown that the yearned for Harper killing silver bullet likely doesn’t exist.
Warren Kinsella himself said once that scandals need fresh meat every day. But this will be one big regurgitation of old news.
When Duffy exposed Dion’s appaling Eglish language skills, that po’ed a lot of the media who were covering for Dion and the Liberal party.
The media, primarily our CBC, ran with the ‘Afghan Detainee’ scandal which was basically a hoax supported by the CBC and one of their favourite professors at the Univ. of Ottawa.
The media,again mainly the CBC, spent countless hours pushing the ‘robo-call’ scandal. They even linked to the Leadnow petition. That pushed up the numbers. ‘Robo-call’ turned out to be next to nothing, one riding which was a Liberal win. But it was a successful attack on the Conservative brand.
They know that even if they lose, some of the mud sticks.
It is dishonest and immoral, and we pay for it.
Steal at least 40 million in brown bags and Grand Meres and the like and its yawn to the CBC and the rest of our pathetic media. Pay back 90 thousand dollars for a bloated trough pig who never should have been considered for the Senate along with the other affirmative action dufus and the other media twit and its hellfire and damnation from the sick media types. These people have had their day in the sun and now are more irrelevant than Crocs.
CBC’s new show “Judge and The Fatman” promises to have audiences stampeding for the remotes!
Neither Harb nor Lavigne were parts of national Liberal election campaign(s)…that is the difference…they were basically nobodies.
This is front page of the National Post today and hopefully that’s it. I’m glad I’m not the only one who sees this trial as potentially being the “Trial of the week”, soon to be filed with the airbus “scandal”. Desperate times call for desperate measures and it looks like the CBC and the Laurentian liberals are grasping for anything. That being said, it does get me majorly po’d when I see the attitude of entitlement exhibited by all the Ottawa trough-feeders. Heck, I have to buy my own lunch no matter where the department sends me, why the h@## shouldn’t they?
“Scorched earth” Seriously?
Look, Mr Mulcair, stop setting your hair on fire, there isn’t much left.
If you want to see scorched earth, see Ontario, for what Liberal policies burn up and leave behind.
Fraud.
The Presstitutes are gleeful thinking some of the puffsters fraud will stick to Harper. It won’t.
Duffy may not be convicted on all counts but this is a seasoned judge who will see through the evidence and will not be distracted. Duffy is a fraudster and will be convicted. He will stay out of jail because of his heart condition.
Did everyone forget Benjamin Levin or the gas plant scandals or how e-mails were deleted or how taxpayer money was used to bribe the person who deleted the e-mails or how teachers/workers/police unions are easily bought and sold or how two NDP MPs went to Washington to rally against the Keystone Pipeline or how a certain PM’s son is just a dunce?
I guess so.
If the media want fraud, then perhaps they should examine their own coverage of the faux climate change issue. And that has cost us far more than Duffy could ever chow down.
Its not that the stories have become larger just that the media has become smaller.
About Duffy.
The guy is an insecure opportunist and a Liberal.
There was a time when Chretien was bothered by Duffy to be appointed to the senate:
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/News/Local/2013-10-30/article-3459135/Chretien-says-he-had-the-good-sense-not-to-appoint-Duffy-to-Senate/1
“When he was in the lobby of the House of Commons, he would say, ‘Hi prime minister. I’m ready, I’m ready.’ He must have said that a hundred times,” Chrétien said.”
If you have not noticed this is what “journalists” do, they get appointed to the senate for services rendered. Not because of ideology. Not because of journalism. They got something on the politician.
As many know there is the incestuous relationship between politicians and “journalists”.
You masturbate my ego, I will appoint you to the senate.
It must be that Harper got sick of listening to this character and appointed him just to get him out of the way.
Duffy is no conservative.
Just one more thing.
The guy that gave Duffy the money. It was a private transaction. Why is this an issue? If a guy wants to give another guy money, whose problem would that be.
That is not to say that Duffy is not a scumbag freeloader.
The crooked liberal party media seem to have missed the big story about the criminals running ontario
The “progressive” media’s hyperventilating over “duffygate” along with the media’s begging and pleading for someone, anyone to care about this story as much as the media’ does reminds me of the toned downed media reaction when the Adscam story broke… It was Paul Wells of MacLeans magazine who angrily and dismissively described the AG Sheila Fraser as a “drama queen” while the media pleaded for the public to wait until “all the facts were in before passing judgement”… Remember the media hysteria surrounding the “robocalls” scandal that never was? Stephan Maher does, in fact Maher won an award for his “reporting”(lying), the fact that the whole ‘robocalls” fiasco was bogus didn’t seem to matter to the intrepid progressive media pack. “Duffygate” just further illustrates the progressive media’s desperation, moral bankruptcy, ethical corruption and complete detachment from reality. What did Duffy do that other Senators didn’t do…? he paid back an expense claim.
Duffy is all the leftards have as a complaint about the far rightwing scary Conservatives under the evil totalitarian regime of dictator Harper. Quite the horrific scandal of the last decade in Canada. Can the nation survive? Can Bill Wymans bastard son do better?
No point in regurgitating old liberal sins. For a liberal… history starts every morning.
This quite possibly could be the biggest MSM story since Chief Spence’s “hunger” strike.
Peter, with all do respect, you’re an idiot. You haven’t read bill C 51. If you had you would t be spouting ‘police state’ talking points that the left do. There is nothing in C51 that is Orwellian. Certainly nothing like the tanks rolling down the streets of Montreal in 1970 on the order of the shiny pony’s father. War measures act in peace time. Now that’s police state. Know your history, know your facts, and know the truth.
Exactly.
The Laurentian Elite are out to get PM Harper no matter what, and yet all the Liberal sleazebags are given a free pass. How dare anyone not chosen by them be prime minister.
It’s pretty safe to say most people like reading interesting news, 41 days of this story on the front page will kill whats left of MSM’s readership.
Just on the non-charging of Nigel Wright, I think I might have have caught a rare glimpse of the reasoning, the merest glint, of course, and from an unlikely source at that, the other day:
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/reevely-the-alleged-bribe-that-nobody-made
You have to slog through the goo of Professor Conacher’s paranoia and self-righteousness and all that, but Mr. Reevely seems to be suggesting that the RCMP’s conclusion was that Mr. Duffy (through his lawyer, no less!; grounds for disbarment, if determinatively sustained in this trial?) instigated the call for “financial assistance”.
When I think of a “bribe” in the governmental sphere, I think of someone — a non-office-holding third-party — with something to gain from some public-policy decision offering an inducement to someone in a position of authority who can make that decision happen the way the third-party wants.
Well, if what Mr. Reevely says is true, that’s not what happened here. Mr. Duffy is the office-holder, albeit with no authority over anything. So, Mr. Harper says, both directly and through Mr. Wright, apparently, “You gotta pay back the money.” So, Mr. Duffy says to Mr. Wright, through his lawyer, “I’ll pay it back if you give it to me first.”
Well, if that’s the way this went down, that would we be case-closed to my way of thinking, with curtains for Mr. Duffy. And, if true, that has huge circumstantial explanatory power: since Mr. Wright gave Mr. Duffy the money out of his own pocket, that means that either one of two things must have occurred, namely,
(a) Mr. Wright didn’t tell Mr. Harper of Mr. Duffy’s demand and went ahead on his own (in which case Mr. Wright should have resigned or been dismissed, on the grounds of naivety, gullibility, stupidity, etc.),
or that
(b) Mr. Wright did tell Mr. Harper of Mr. Duffy’s demand, Mr. Harper responded with something like, “Tell him to go get stuffed.”, and Mr. Wright decided went ahead on his own (in which case Mr. Wright should have resigned or been dismissed, on the grounds of insubordination, naivety…).
Well, of course, the Wright business is a small part of Mr. Duffy’s overall problem, but it’s the only part that the “news media” can really link, however remotely, back to Mr. Harper’s judgement. After all, many Liberal prime ministers have appointed many pigs-at-the-trough to the Senate, but we never hear too much about the judgment of the Liberal prime ministers who appointed them, once they’ve been skewered.
And that also has huge circumstantial explanatory power: the heads are exploding at the “news media” outlets you mention for the very reason you also mention: if Nigel Wright is innocent of criminality, having not instigated an inducement, then there is, by definition, no silver bullet against Mr. Harper.
Mansbridge – “It’s about YOUR MONEY”!
Yes, please cry us a river about OUR money, you money grubbing socialist stooge.
Never a problem with the government taking OUR money and blowing it on leftist propaganda and other political garbage, the CBC leading the MOB.
“Where was the outrage from the media when the Adscam/Gomery inquiry was going on?”
Funny thing: in June 2004, after parliament had recessed for the summer break, CBC made a programming change and announced they were canceling PnP for the summer and wouldn’t resume the program until the fall session of parl got underway. A clear attempt by the CBC at erasing adscam from the minds of Canadians. Last year, however, CBC chose to air PnP right through the summer, with the daily focus being the senate expense scandal… the summer before that, robocalls was the focus. If there’s a Lib gov’t elected this year — god forbid — that finds itself in scandal and controversy, Evan Solomon no doubt will be making plans for a long summer vacation.
I wonder what the narrative will be like when the Duffster comes out of this with nothing more than the equivalent of a slap on the wrist?
Really… Can you imagine a judge sending Duffy to jail over this? Oh, wait… I forgot for a moment about Linda Gibbons, but I digress.
What do you suppose the same media, who condemned Harper’s lament over the Supreme Court, will say when Duffy is found either not guilty, or guilty with a suspended sentence, or something like that.
Mansbridge – “It’s about YOUR MONEY”!
Would that be the same money that pays this pinhead’s obscene salary? On May 3, 2011, the government should have tabled a bill to immediately defund the CBC. The “Friends of the CBC” could have dug into their own pockets and made up the shortfall. After all, they seem to have the wherewithal to run childish ads condemning so-called government interference in the operation of the CBC. When Mr. Harper retains his majority this fall, the first order of business has to be the removal of this parasite from the Canadian taxpayer once and for all. No half measures.
If you had called me an idiot with “all due respect” I could perhaps excuse your ignorance. I have followed the snooping file since I first became very aware of it after APEC 99, when it was leaked that US spies had every bodies negotiating positions picked up from intercepts. I’ve been survieled and didn’t like it. I’ve been screened by spooks prior to meetings and was even joined by RCMP security at my table at the “Unite the Right” dinner in Vancouver in 03 (and I was a guest of an MP) and I have watched with dismay as the this issue has metastasized.
If we need to destroy all we believe in to achieve our goals, we need a serious rethink. This spook program has us on hot rails to hell. Whatever we think we are doing, I call bullsh*t. When DHS was set up in the US they recruited a former STASI top dog. When the OSS morphed into the CIA they recruited all the former NAZI operatives in the east bloc. They outnumbered the OSS/CIA guys by about 10 to 1. The spooks are a state within the state now. So you propose giving them carte blanch to keep up the good work? With little to no oversight? Sorry I think it is insane and I’m hard core conservative.
I suspect interest in this case is going to founder on the rocks of intensely boring details. My gut feeling is duffy did not exercise the restraint that one should in that position, being that one should be leading by example, but that likely is not a crime.