Irony of ironies

My M. P., Stephen Harper just sent a pamphlet outlining how Parliament works.  Funny thing is, no mention of contempt, ministerial responsibility, responsible government, prorogation, confidence votes.  He did state that one of the key responsibilities of the Crown is to ensure there is always a P. M.  So long as he is called Dear Leader?Recommend this Post

Three down. Three to go

Impolitical gets a little excited about three up-coming by-elections.  And suggests that there might be 2 more to come.  At a time of a well deserved drop in support.
Well if the idea of 5 by-elections brightens up a cloudy post-Canada Day day, think about this: This illegitimate Conservative government is based on a majority of 12 seats. (s/t Creekside).  All we need is the 3 confirmed, the 2 Impolitical predicted and 1 more.  Win them and Harper will need to make another trip to the Governor General.

Irresponsible speculation.  It would be irresponsible not to!Recommend this Post

Never attribute (wholly) to (F35) incompetence that which can be adequately explained by malice

The AG has shown the Harper Regime to be a pack of liars.  The Galloping Beaver has, along with lots of other bloggers, done a great job of unraveling the many ways in which this fiasco came to be.  Now, never let it be said that I take a rear guard position when it comes to pointing out that Harper et al. are dumb, dishonest and unfit for Opposition never mind the government benches.  But I think all of this fine analysis is missing something.

And this something is that I have no doubt that as Harper directed this lie-fest, at the back of his mind he was also thinking that if he could get away with foisting the F-35 on us he could insert a fiscal time bomb into the federal framework.  His tax cuts have been a transparent attempt to reduce the flexibility of future governments to maintain or add social programs.  If he was able to insert this time delayed sclerosis into the financial arteries of the government it would really have messed it up for when sane people take over the reins.

The F-35 is more than an over-priced plane that doesn't serve our needs.  It is another way for Harper to destroy this country.Recommend this Post

An example of the need to stop Robocalls in their tracks

I was watching the CTV news last night (Give me a break.  It is the only channel I can get here) and at the end of a segment on the Alberta election campaign there was a mention of people complaining about receiving rude  calls at 5:30 A.M. from the PC party.  Which the PCs denied making.  I looked on the website but could not find the actual segment.  If anyone else has seen this please let me know so I can update with a link.

It is obvious that the provincial wing of the Harper Party (aka Wild Rose) isn't scared of using the same tactics as are under investigation federally.  These tactics must be excised from our politics.  And the people authorizing them sent away for a long time.Recommend this Post

Looking back at the effects of voter suppression in 2008

I read with interest Professor Anke S. Kessler's draft paper on the effect of Robocalls on the 2011 election.It reminded me that I had run a series of posts from 2008-2010 on voter suppression and it's effects on elections.  These posts can be found here.  I still find this one particularly instructive with regards the power of vote suppression aimed at a particular party.

It would appear that Harper realized that shameless character assassination against a far better man wouldn't be enough.  So off to direct voter suppression he would go in 2011.

But all is not lost.  If we can motivate people to look past the despicable Rovian tactics of Harper we might be able to experience a higher vote turnout.  Sort of like I described here.  As a matter of fact, I like the implications of this graph so much I am going to repost it.

So the answer is: Get people out to vote.  As with all problems, once the solution is apparent, the path to achieve it becomes clearer.Recommend this Post