Sunday Post

Oh, dear:

A federal Liberal Party strategist in Victoria once described himself as “the head of operations for the SCL Group,” a company associated with a consultancy now at the centre of a global controversy over the misuse of Facebook data.

Ray Larson is also an associate of Christopher Wylie, who alleged late last week that a company he spun out of the SCL Group, Cambridge Analytica, surreptitiously obtained personal information on 50 million users of the social-media giant.

Mr. Wylie has said he joined SCL Group, which involves several distinct and interrelated corporations, before helping create Cambridge Analytica.

This week, opposition MPs seized on Mr. Wylie’s ties to the federal Liberal Party after news reports that said the 28-year-old former volunteer and researcher signed a $100,000 contract in 2016 to do social-media consulting for the party.

Insiders in the federal Liberal Party in British Columbia describe Mr. Larson as an early adopter of modern-day campaigning techniques that are believed to have helped the Liberals form a majority government.

Hours and hours of getting into the Liberals' collective grill still results in their mind-boggling deflection from their obvious lies and racism (yes, racism because Justin's "jolly Bengali" act was just humiliating and then calling the Indian government liars was the very limit):

The Trudeau government is doing everything they can to distract from Justin’s disastrous trip to India.

They’ve thrown the public service under the bus, pushed the national security advisor to spread a conspiracy theory blaming India, and now they’re playing one of the most predictable cards in the Trudeau Liberal deck:

Accusing opponents of being offensive.

In the House of Commons, Liberal MP Ruby Sahota said she was “incredibly offended” to hear a Conservative MP call Justin Trudeau’s outfits during his India trip “costumes.”

Also embarrassing, these things:

According to a report by Toronto Sun columnist Anthony Furey, members of the Liberal Caucus are increasingly fed up with the high profile and excessive influence of Trudeau advisor Gerald Butts.

Writes Furey, “The man is Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s principal secretary. While his title may sound like he’s the chief coffee boy, make no mistake — he’s the head honcho. A former senior advisor to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, he’s referred to as PM Butts by many Liberal caucus members. This undemocratic dynamic has been known to political watchers since day one but has managed to stay as an inside baseball story. Until now. In recent months, Butts has been drawing his own attention in a way that’s bound to make him a greater liability for the PM moving forward.”

Furey notes that there is a theory that Butts was behind the idea of sending Trudeau’s national security advisor to tell the media that the Jaspal Atwal invite was a conspiracy by the government of India.

Butts also garnered attention for despicably calling critics of Trudeau’s “peoplekind” remark ‘Nazis.’

**

Justin Trudeau’s promise of “openness” and “transparency” is now nothing but a sad joke.

When asked by reporter Laura Stone why he is blocking National Security Advisor Daniel Jean from testifying on the discredited conspiracy theory blaming India for the Jaspal Atwal invite, Trudeau booked it up the stairs instead.

If the caucus is fed up with Justin and his puppeteer, they could always cross the floor. Sure, they may bow out of some lucrative money-grabbing but their party won't clog up the political toilet. How long are they willing to put up with Justin's incessant gaffes, sissy-running and emotional retardation? Are they willing to be screamed at all the time? 




Help me out, Boushie family - who travelled to Ottawa to convince Hair-Boy to tilt the law in your favour? :

Boushie’s family members have found support in each other and people across the country as they try to move forward and advocate for changes to the justice system, Tootoosis said.

When they heard that publishing companies had been contacted on Stanley’s behalf they were appalled because “the entire court process gave Gerald Stanley the full platform,” she said.

“He is alive here to be able to tell his story and he did. That was what the court process was about,” she said.

“I just can barely comprehend this individual and his motives and what he is trying to accomplish or achieve. It’s just upsetting.”

It's more upsetting that people can play the race card before and after committing a crime.




As long as certain entities profit under Wynne's waste of money, she will always find an electorate willing to put her back in the driver's seat:

Since 2003, the Liberals have doubled government spending from $71 billion to $141 billion annually, while increasing provincial debt by 125%, from $138.8 billion to $311.9 billion, making Ontario the world’s most indebted sub-sovereign borrower.

Even the Liberals concede a healthy debt-to-Gross Domestic Product ratio for Ontario — a key indicator of economic health — would be 27%, which is what the Liberals inherited from the previous Progressive Conservative government in 2003. 

By contrast, in their 15 years in power, they’ve increased the debt-to-GDP ratio to 37.5%, and rising, while lacking a credible plan to reduce it to 27%, according to the Legislature’s independent, non-partisan Financial Accountability Office.

And that was before Finance Minister Charles Sousa announced that in Wednesday’s budget, the Liberals will abandon the commitment they made a year ago to balance the province’s books in 2018-19 and 2019-20, after claiming they balanced them in 2017-18 following almost a decade of deficits.

But the Auditor General and Financial Accountability Office say that for the 2017-18 fiscal year, the Liberals are actually running a deficit of $4 billion to $4.5 billion, hidden by accounting tricks.

Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk says the Wynne Liberals have improperly claimed a $12.4 billion surplus in two public sector pension plans as an asset, because they cannot access these funds without the permission of the employees’ unions.

They have also, she says, improperly kept the $39.4 billion required to fund Wynne’s Fair Hydro Plan — temporarily reducing electricity rates by 25% before sending them skyrocketing — off the province’s books, by transferring the debt to Ontario Power Generation, meaning electricity consumers will have to pay up to $4 billion extra in unnecessary interest costs. 

Even using Wynne’s numbers, the Liberals in 2018-19 will spend $12 billion of taxpayers’ money — $1 billion a month — just paying interest on the province’s  $311.9 billion debt.

Furious that someone finally penalised it, China rattles one of its many sabres at the US:

China urged the United States on Friday to “pull back from the brink” as President Donald Trump’s plans for tariffs on up to US$60 billion in Chinese goods moved the world’s two largest economies closer to a trade war.

The escalating tensions sent shivers through financial markets as investors foresaw dire consequences for the global economy if trade barriers start going up.

Well, China shouldn't be a dishonest broker.

You can own this, China.


Also - what the hell, Japan? :

An information processing firm in Tokyo assigned to process the personal data of around 5 million pensioners outsourced part of the task to a Chinese company — in violation of a contract that prohibited subcontracts, according to the Japan Pension Service.

The outsourcing fell under the spotlight after it was revealed that around 1.3 million people received lower pension benefits in February than they were entitled to as income tax breaks were not adequately reflected.

The pension management body, which has seen a series of incidents of mismanagement related to pension records, has been investigating whether the involvement of the Chinese firm caused the lower payments.

And - Justin admires his financiers:

In a video produced by the Trudeau Liberals to celebrate “Canada-China Year of Tourism,” cabinet minister Bardish Chagger is seen before a white screen with rotating graphics speaking about how great Canada is to visit, how wonderful the relationship with China is and how Trudeau has made Canada’s relationship with China a priority.

That last statement comes just after a graphic appears on the screen showing a map of China coloured in red, like Red China…get it. The bad part is, the red parts of the map representing China include Taiwan and the Philippines.

But I thought that everyone was getting along:

North Korean media resumed their virulent anti-U.S. propaganda on Thursday, calling the Americans "the most vicious and cunning imperialists in the world" and "brutes in human form." 

The regime had largely refrained from florid rhetoric against the U.S. since U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to hold a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The fresh denunciation came after Choe Kang-il, deputy director general for North American affairs at the North Korean Foreign Ministry, attended a meeting with academics and officials from the two Koreas and the U.S. in Helsinki, Finland the previous day.

It appears not to have gone according to plan. 

In an editorial titled "An illusion about imperialism means death," the official Rodong Sinmun said, "The U.S.' chronic aversion and hostility to independent countries can never change, no matter how much time has passed and no matter who holds power" in Washington.

 

The sad thing is that he didn't have to die:

 

Lt-Col Arnaud Beltrame, 44, was shot and stabbed after he traded places with one of the captives following a shooting spree in southern France.

Flags are being flown at half-mast at gendarmerie bases across France.

His brother Cedric said Col Arnaud "didn't have a chance", adding that his actions were "beyond the call of duty". 

"He gave his life for strangers. He must have known that he didn't really have a chance. If that doesn't make him a hero, I don't know what would," Col Arnaud's brother Cedric told a French radio station on Saturday.

He gave his life to protect a victim is Islamist violence.

But why let facts get in the way?
 

But he's right:

 

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum suggested teens protesting gun violence instead prepare to help the victims of mass shootings by learning CPR and practicing active shooter drills.

“How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that,” Santorum said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

 

CPR is a useful skill and could result in the saving of a life, unlike waving around signs and pretending that doing so is somehow helpful in combatting a hot-button issue.

 

But signalling one's virtue is not about being practical.