Mid-Week Post

Where does the time go?


As it now stands, there are over forty offenses in the Canadian Criminal Code for which convicted criminals may have a mandatory minimum sentence imposed on them. Some of these mandatory minimum sentences were instituted by the Liberals, including Pierre Trudeau. The Fils is taking fire for wanting to eliminate the very things Pere helped bring in:

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has said several times over the past two weeks that if he ever becomes prime minister, he will consider repealing all mandatory minimum criminal sentences.

He first stuck his toe in the justice-policy waters via Twitter, where 140-character messages exhaust the depth of his intellect on most subjects. Asked whether he would consider rolling back the mandatory minimums brought in by the Tories, Trudeau Tweeted "I (and the Liberal party) trust the judiciary to do their jobs well, so yes."

But Trudeau and his party didn't stop there. Liberal justice critic Sean Casey told the CBC the party stands against mandatory minimums but agreed that maybe the minimums for murder were OK.

Monday at an event at Toronto's Ryerson University, Trudeau even admitted to Sun News reporter Marissa Semkiw that he "wouldn't rule out repealing mandatory minimums for anyone," even sickos who commit sex crimes against children.

No doubt Trudeau and the Grits are against mandatory minimums because they believe such penalties were invented by Stephen Harper, and everything Harper does is wrong.

But according to the criminal law policy section of Justice Canada, there are 66 criminal offences that carry mandatory minimum sentences in Canada, 38 of which were introduced by Liberal governments.

Oops.

Justin Trudeau, hard-pressed to devise an original policy or anything that doesn't involve attacking Harper, because, hey, attacking is easier than being a real leader, would also have to further empower activist judges and re-consider time served in sentencing if he wants this to work.


I don't know why anyone would want to travel to North Korea, anyway:

For some people, visiting North Korea is like dating Madonna — plodding a tired, well-worn, loveless, and morally ambiguous path that gives some people an inexplicable feeling that they’ve entered an unexplored place. Except that Dennis Rodman and countless others already did.

 
Some people sneak in to do the work the UN steadfastly refuses to do. Others, I don't know...

By the way, Kenneth Bae is still in prison so focus on him and not some douche in Russia.

Just saying.

Do read this commentary on Elle magazine's thoughtless article on North Korean military chic. Priceless.

(Kamsahamnida)


I'm sure this was entirely accidental:

Hundreds of pages of detailed information on U.S. government programs to help Cuban dissident leaders may have fallen into the hands of the Cuban regime due to a failure to encrypt documents sent to Havana, a mistake one official called "an amazingly stupid thing to do."

 
Is the NSA STILL spying on average Americans? I'm confident that these guys would be all over this.


Yeah, I'll say:

Israel's foreign minister said Wednesday that it was time for his country to look beyond the U.S. as its principal ally, the Jerusalem Post reports. Foreign minister Avigdor Liberman said that the U.S. was too distracted with other problems. However, with talks resuming in Geneva toward a nuclear deal with Iran that Israel fears is too weak, Liberman's statement reflects disappointment in President Obama's policies.

 

The White House is still trying to avoid responsibility for Benghazi.


And now, can you find the invisible cow?