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The scandal that just won't die:

Former cabinet minister Jane Philpott is asking the Speaker of the House of Commons to examine whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the law when he expelled her and Jody Wilson-Raybould from the Liberal caucus.

Despite new rules laid out in the Parliament of Canada Act, MPs can’t be kicked out of caucus without a vote, and yet Trudeau made a unilateral decision last week to eject her and Wilson-Raybould, Philpott declared Tuesday as she asked Speaker Geoff Regan to declare that their privileges were violated.

A set of amendments to the act, spearheaded by Conservative MP Michael Chong, was passed in 2015 in an effort to make it more difficult for MPs to be removed from caucus — part of an effort to decentralize political power on Parliament Hill and put it back in the hands of rank-and-file legislators.

Under the law, after each election the MPs of each party are supposed to vote on whether to adopt a set of rules on how one of their number can be expelled. After the last election, the new Liberal MPs voted to send the issue off for a separate discussion rather than decide either way.

If Trudeau had followed the rules spelled out in the law, it would have taken 90 Liberal MPs to vote to kick her and Wilson-Raybould out, said Philpott — and yet no such recorded vote was held before the prime minister expelled the pair on the grounds that they had lost the trust of caucus.

“We were expelled prior to the commencement of the Liberal caucus meeting,” Philpott told the Commons from her new perch among independent MPs.

“The prime minister’s words that night to the Liberal caucus are important to underscore, because expulsion should not be his decision to take unilaterally. However, the decision had been already made.”

I would just like to add at this point that Jane Philpott was a part of the same Liberal Party that has let its leader do all manner of things without warning or repercussion.

But I digress ...

**

During Question Period, Bardish Chagger tried to somehow defend the hilariously miscalculated lawsuit threat made by Justin Trudeau against Andrew Scheer.

And yet again, she and the Liberals lied.

Chagger claimed that Scheer was “editing and changing tweets.”

Yet, Twitter doesn’t have an ‘edit’ button.

In fact, that’s one of the things many Twitter users have complained about, wanting the ability to edit Tweets after they are made.

But that option does not exist.


Simply put, Tweets can’t be edited.

Also:

In response to a question from the media about his lawsuit threat against Andrew Scheer – a threat he seems hilariously unwilling to actually follow through on – Trudeau said this:

“…you can’t be inventing things, you can’t be lying to Cdns & I think highlighting that there are consequences…when politicians choose to twist the truth & distort reality for Cdns—it’s not something we’re going to put up with”

You don't say, Justin.




The Liberals offer their friend $12 million give $12 million to Loblaw's to make their refrigeration units more energy-efficient:

Loblaws is a gigantic corporation that makes tons of money.

Last year, they had a profit of about $800 million.

They also previously admitted to fixing the price of bread for over a decade, costing many Canadians a lot of money for a basic necessity – something that hurt low-income Canadians the most.

“The Loblaw parent company reported $800 million in net earnings last year. They also admitted to being part of a bread price fixing racket that most adversely impacted poor people.”

**

The money is meant to help Loblaw Companies Ltd. convert its refrigeration systems in approximately 370 stores across Canada so they are more energy efficient, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said at a press conference in Ottawa.

The project, which is funded through the Low Carbon Economy Fund, aims to reduce the company’s emissions by 23 per cent over the next three years.

Loblaws applied to the fund in 2018 to add to its own investment of “$36 million to reduce refrigerant emissions,” spokesperson Catherine Thomas said in an emailed statement. “(This) will result in the equivalent carbon reductions of taking 50,000 cars off the road annually.”

The company, which owns stores such as Loblaws, Superstore, Fortinos and Shoppers Drug Mart, is Canada’s biggest grocery retailer, with $46.6 billion in revenue for 2018 and a 63 per cent market share.

It’s owned by the Weston family, which is the third richest in the country. Galen Weston, the patriarch, is currently worth $7.8 billion, according to Bloomberg data. Galen Weston Jr. runs the business after taking the helm in 2006.

Justin is claiming that he didn't know that his government (of which he is head) was giving $10.5 million to Omar Khadr:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not yet aware a $10.5-million payment to Omar Khadr had been finalized when news of the settlement leaked to the media in the summer of 2017, an internal report shows — suggesting one explanation for why the government launched a wide-ranging hunt for the source of the leak.

Yes, about that:

The Prime Minister’s Office told the National Post Trudeau had authorized the general terms of the settlement ahead of time, including the dollar amount. 

(Sidebar: so he authorised a payment and didn't think it would go through? That's the lie he is running with? Oh, boy ...)

**

However, a source in the Prime Minister’s Office who spoke on the condition they not be named said the payment of money also had to be authorized directly by Trudeau, as well as Finance Minister Bill Morneau, because it was a funding request taking place outside the usual budget reporting process.

But ... but ... infrastructure!:

Infrastructure spending in the three northern territories was lower over the last two years than it would have been in the absence of the federal government’s $188-billion infrastructure program, according to another new report that raises doubt over the success of one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s signature undertakings.

It's an election year!:

The Liberal government is taking steps to stem the tide of asylum seekers who’ve been crossing into Canada from the U.S. at unofficial border crossings.

(Sidebar: not asylum-seekers. Words matter.)

Tucked into this year’s 392-page omnibus budget bill, ...

(Sidebar: also tucked into the omnibus budget bill, this.)

... which arrived in the House of Commons Monday evening, is a provision that would prevent anyone who has made a refugee claim in certain other countries from making another claim in Canada. The provision applies to claims made in countries with which Canada has information-sharing agreements.

Only a handful of countries qualify. The United States, through which all of the irregular border crossers pass, is one of them.

To wit:

“One of the reasons why Canada remains an open country is Canadians trust our immigration system and the integrity of our borders and the help we provide people who are looking for safety,” Trudeau told parliament. 

“We will continue to strike that balance between a rigorous system and accepting people who need help.” 

I guess no one likes your welcome mat anymore, Justin.




If one cannot rely on the wisdom and experience of an official, on what can one rely?:

City treasurer Marian Simulik fell for a "fake CEO scam" and wired more than $100,000 to a fraudster last summer, according to a startling report from Ottawa's audit general released Monday afternoon.

Many people receive suspicious emails asking for money, a practice known as phishing. But the scam perpetrated on Simulik is known as "whaling" because it targets big fish, like CEOs and chief financial officers.

And that's what happen to Simulik on July 6, when she received an email that appeared to come from city manager Steve Kanellakos, asking her to pay a city supplier $97,797.20 US, currently worth about $130,000 Cdn.

Tourists flock to North Korea to see the Running of the Oppressed:

According to the travel agency Koryo Tours, which specializes in bringing foreigners into North Korea, around 950 tourists attended the event on Sunday, compared with 450 in 2018. The event allows foreigners to compete in the marathon through the capital and forms part of the regime’s celebrations of the birthday of the late dictator Kim Il-Sung in April 1912. ...

Australian Jasmine Barrett, who has competed in the marathon three times, told AFP she kept returning so she could “see the smiles on the children’s faces” as they cheered on the runners. “I’d definitely recommend it to others because it’s a great way to see the city and the people who live there,” she said.

Like these children, Jasmine? Are these the children you mean?

A woman with a German passport who ran to the Middle East to be an ISIS groupie and who let a child die of thirst hides her face while in court:

Devoted followers of the Islamic State, a man and woman bought a 5-year-old Yazidi girl in Iraq to use as a slave, then let her die of thirst in the scorching heat, the German authorities contend in the trial of the woman, which began on Tuesday — one of the highest-profile cases against a female member of the terrorist group.

The prosecution stems largely from the words of the defendant, who was desperate to return last year to the Islamic State, or ISIS, and found someone willing to drive her to the Middle East. Unknown to her, the driver was working with the German security services, and he recorded their conversations as she told him all about her life under the organization.

The 27-year-old German woman, identified only as Jennifer W. in keeping with German privacy law, showed no emotion during the 15 minutes it took a judge in Munich to read out the charges against her, which include murder, war crimes, membership in a foreign terror organization and weapons violations. ...

According to the indictment, Jennifer W. and her husband “bought a 5-year-old girl in summer 2015 from a group of prisoners of war and kept her in their home as a slave.”

“After the girl fell ill and wet her mattress, the defendant’s husband punished the girl by chaining her up outside in the searing heat and leaving her in great agony to die of thirst,” prosecutors said. “The defendant let her husband do as he liked, and took no action to save the girl.”

Officials have not identified the husband, but German news media have reported he is an ISIS member, believed to be living in the region where Iraq borders Turkey.

If convicted, Jennifer W. faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Shooting such people should be mandatory.




Oh, my! That's horrible!:

In Episode 2 of Netflix’s new blockbuster nature documentary series Our Planet, hundreds of walruses, driven into unusual food-hunting patterns by climate change, walk straight off a Russian cliff to their deaths.

However:

Old and Busted: Disney throwing lemmings off a cliff
The New HOTNESS: David Attenborough and his flying walruses. https://t.co/AYQ1LovwVP

— Arthur Kimes (@ComradeArthur) April 9, 2019

What the Germans thought after Vimy Ridge:

Official records have April 9, 1917 as the date of death for 2,414 Canadian soldiers. In most prior Canadian conflicts, that kind of death toll would have been beyond obscene. In the pivotal Battle of the Plains of Abraham, less than 200 soldiers were killed on both sides. In the entire Boer War, Canada had lost 267 men. Some First World War soldiers would have grown up around aging veterans of the Fenian Raids, which saw only 22 Canadians killed. But in the context of the First World War, Vimy was still a “cheap” victory. ...

Despite their mistakes, the Germans would soon be portraying the battle as a victory. They had, after all, prevented an Allied “breakthrough” of German lines. “The fierce battle over Vimy Ridge was fought to a standstill. To be able to call oneself a Vimy fighter, was from then on a high honour!” wrote one German writer. Vimy Ridge certainly thinned the ranks of the Kaiser’s army by a few thousand (the precise casualty lists were destroyed during Second World War air raids), but historians still aren’t sure whether the war would have any ended sooner than November 11, 1918 if the Allies had simply spent the rest of the war staring at a German-occupied Vimy Ridge. As the Canadian military historian J.L. Granatstein wrote, “Vimy did not change the course of the war.” ...

A member of the Kaiser’s Army could not go to sleep without the fear that they’d be woken up by Canadian with a blackened face holding a knife to their throat. These men were also lucky to have been able to surrender safely. All along the Western Front, Canadian troops had a grisly reputation for failing to take prisoners. At the outset of Battle of Vimy Ridge, one platoon officer told his men, “remember, no prisoners. They will just eat your rations.”

Well, when you put it that way ...




Scientists believe it is possible to restore working memory in Alzheimer's patients:

The memory of older people has been returned to the state of someone in their 20s for the first time by applying electrical stimulation to the brain to reconnect faulty circuits. Scientists at Boston University have proven it is possible to restore working memory by “recoupling” areas of the brain that become out-of-sync as people grow older.

Short-term working memory is crucial for everyday life, storing information for around 10-15 seconds to allow problem solving, reasoning, planning and decision making; for example, keeping the digits of a telephone number in mind while writing it down.

Sometimes described as being “mentally online”, working memory forms the basis of consciousness, but declines with age and is the reason elderly people can struggle with basic tasks.

Now scientists believe they have uncovered what causes the decline and how to reverse it.

Two areas in the brain, the prefrontal and temporal cortex must be talking to each other correctly for working memory to function well.

When scientists fired electrical currents of the same frequency at the areas, older people were found to be able to carry out working memory tasks as well as people in their 20s.