Friday Post

Lots going on ...




Despite having repatriated Omar Khadr under extreme pressure when no one else did, former prime minister Stephen Harper exhibits decency where the Trudeau government steadfastly refuses to:

First it was a Toronto Sun reader buying a full-page advertisement to apologize to Omar Khadr’s victims for the eight-figure settlement he received from the Canadian government.

Now former prime minister Stephen Harper has reached out to the families to express his outrage.

Upset about the Liberal government’s $10.5-million settlement with Khadr, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s predecessor picked up the phone Wednesday and called American soldier Layne Morris at his home in Utah.

“Layne spoke with Prime Minister Harper today,” his wife, Leisl, said on Wednesday night.

The call came just hours before lawyers for Morris and the widow of American special forces Sgt. Christopher Speer went into court to attempt to freeze Khadr’s assets with a view that the windfall could be applied to a $134-milllion American court judgment they won.

**

“The measure of a just society is not whether we stand up for people’s rights when it’s easy or popular to do so, it’s whether we recognize rights when it’s difficult, when it’s unpopular.” That was Justin Trudeau’s initial public response last week in Ireland. The settlement was primarily a matter of national honour.  

Well, if the settlement — amount and apology — is really a case of doing the honourable and virtuous thing, regardless of public sentiment, why has the Prime Minister not highlighted the decision, boldly stood up and clearly stated the thinking behind the government’s actions? 

Instead, the Khadr settlement reached Canadian ears, as I wrote earlier, by a leak between our Canada Day celebrations and Trudeau’s trip out of the country. A time chosen for least impact and greatest distraction. ...

Trudeau’s performance to date suggests a politician auditioning his responses, trying to find the one to match the country’s mood, rather more than a person convinced of his own choices.

The more this drags on (and it should drag on into a no-confidence motion), the more one sees Trudeau and his lackeys fall over themselves trying to excuse a terrible and unjust decision.


Also:

First there was the initial gut reaction, when Canadians learned what was then a rumour of the $10.5 million pay-out. ...

Then the numbers came out, courtesy of Angus Reid Institute, revealing that three quarters of Canadians opposed the deal. They would have preferred the government take it to the courts and fight. ...

Then, on Thursday, my colleague Joe Warmington revealed that former prime minister Stephen Harper actually called Morris personally to extend his apologies for the deal. It’s believed he did the same with Speer’s widow.

For a few days, a number of establishment voices thought it was their duty to lecture Canadians about legal technicalities. I even had one lawyer brazenly write to me on twitter that he thought people were too ignorant to have an opinion on this topic.

(Sidebar: are lawyers too ignorant in defending unrepentant murderers of American medics and teen-aged girls?)

They got it dead wrong. People are aware of the nuances of the deal. They just don’t like it. And there’s little that can be said to change their minds.

This weekend there are multiple protests planned across the country. I’ve even heard from people currently working to get a permit for one on Parliament Hill.

Oh, dear. How will the blue-bloods extricate themselves from this?




Today in the most "transparent" government in Canadian history:

On the same evening that Canadian Governor General David Johnston met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, Chinese democracy activist Liu Xiaobo died under guard in a hospital in Shenyang. As Johnston expressed his appreciation for President Xi “making time for us,” Liu passed away in silence, his body wracked by a cancer that was revealed to the public only after it was largely beyond treatment. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau didn’t acknowledge or commemorate Liu’s death in any way, not even on Twitter. This was in keeping with his silence regarding Liu’s case over the last few weeks, even as China’s refusal to allow Liu to seek medical treatment abroad became known to the world. 

Also:

Timber company Sino-Forest and several of its top executives defrauded investors, misled investigators and “engaged in deceitful or dishonest conduct,” the Ontario Securities Commission ruled in one of Canada’s largest corporate fraud cases.

Trudeau attempts toughness but does not succeed:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday warned U.S. governors against "politically tempting shortcuts" as the two countries and Mexico prepare to renegotiate the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. 

Waiting for the bottom to fall out:

And yet, despite some very recent lessons about over-indebtedness from the U.S. and Europe, why have we seemingly learned nothing? The answer seems to be partly that rock-bottom interest rates are too much to resist. And partly that every generation has to learn these lessons for themselves. It is why the cycle of booms and bust in business, financial, commodity and housing markets are remain in perpetual motion.

North Korea may have more bomb fuel than previously thought:

Thermal images of North Korea's main nuclear site show Pyongyang may have reprocessed more plutonium than previously thought that can be used to enlarge its nuclear weapons stockpile, a U.S. think tank said on Friday. 

Also:

The number of North Koreans escaping to the South declined sharply in the first half of this year as Pyongyang strengthened controls on its border with China, officials said.

The DMZ dividing the Korean Peninsula is one of the most heavily fortified places in the world, and almost all defectors to the South go to China first -- where they still risk being repatriated if caught -- and then on to a third country before travelling to the South.

In the six months to June, 593 Northerners entered South Korea, down 20.8 percent from the same period in 2016, statistics compiled by Seoul‘s Unification Ministry showed.

Two Israeli police officers were killed at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem:

In an extraordinarily brazen assault early Friday, three Arab citizens of Israel armed with guns and knives killed two Israeli police officers guarding an entrance to Jerusalem’s holiest site for Jews and Muslims, an emotional and volatile focal point of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Security camera footage showed the armed assailants emerging to attack from within the sacred compound in the Old City of Jerusalem that Jews revere as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Police officers pursued the assailants, who fled back inside the compound and exchanged fire; all three assailants were killed.

The police identified the slain officers as Advanced Staff Sgt. Maj. Hayil Satawi, 30, who was married with a 3-week-old son; and Advanced Staff Sgt. Maj. Kamil Shnaan, 22, the son of a former parliamentarian. Both officers were members of the country’s small Druze community and came from towns in northern Israel.

Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security service, identified the assailants as residents of Umm el-Fahm, a large Arab town in central Israel, near the border with the West Bank: Muhammad Ahmed Jabarin, 29; Muhammad Hamid Jabarin, 19; and Muhammad Ahmed Mufdal Jabarin, 19. It was not immediately known if the three were related, but their names indicated that they belonged to the same large clan.

Also:

After a week-long ban on the sale of two Israeli wines produced in the West Bank — in a style eerily reminiscent of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement — the Canadian government and LCBO backtracked late Thursday afternoon.

Delusional harpies are the reason why the US has Trump:

Last year, writer Jody Allard figured she could throw her own sons under the bus of "rape culture" and be treated approvingly. After all, they're only men. What does it matter if she compares them to rapists?

Since then, one of Allard's sons is, according to her, rebelling against her horrific feminist parenting by embracing the political right.

 
This frightful hag most certainly had sons just so she could hate them.  I feel pity for them and hope that they can escape this succubus as soon as they are able.




Culture matters:

The Islamic State told followers to kidnap children of non-believers in a lengthy instructional article on seizing Westerners' wealth and possessions, illustrating the kidnapping directive with a picture of church choir boys.

Jihadists residing in non-Muslim lands, according to the article, should "not hesitate to take the wealth of the harbi kuffar [non-Muslim disbelievers], either by force or through theft and fraud, and ponder the statement of [medieval Sunni theologian] Imam Ibn Taymiyyah concerning the Muslims who enters dar al-harb [land of disbelievers]: 'Likewise, if he kidnaps them or their children, or subdues them in any way, then the lives and wealth of the harbi kuffar are permissible for the Muslims. So if they seize them in a shar’i manner they own them.'”

"Do not forget that their war on the Islamic State is dependant [sic] on wealth, so purify your intentions, place your trust in Allah, and do not seek anyone’s advice with regards to taking their wealth," continues the directive in the latest issue of ISIS' Rumiyah magazine. "Proceed forward with Allah’s blessing, for indeed stealing the kuffar’s wealth weakens them, threatens the security of their economies, strengthens and emboldens the believers, and prepares them for something greater than theft, and this is among the aspects of jihad that have been abandoned in this era except by a group of those who are truthful, and how few they are."

Sad cow:

A Manitoba woman who hid the remains of six infants in a rented storage locker has been sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison.

Andrea Giesbrecht was found guilty earlier this year of storing the remains in plastic bins in a U-haul storage unit in Winnipeg.

Provincial court Judge Murray Thompson said Giesbrecht's moral culpability was extreme and her behaviour needed to be denounced.

"These were newly delivered infants, our most vulnerable," Thompson said Friday in his livestreamed decision.

"She knew she had medical options and chose not to access them."

The judge noted that Giesbrecht has not shown remorse or taken any responsibility for her actions.

He gave Giesbrecht 8 1/2 months of credit for time already served.

(Sidebar: this is the fault of the stupid Charter.)