Doing That Thing You (Used To) Do...

NoHorseRace

NoSaneWashVille


From Marcy Wheeler's post on questions put to Mr. Trump by folks in the audience at a Unavision TeeVee Town Hall yesterday:

...Six minutes in, a man named Jorge Velázquez took the mic (after Trump offered a smarmy compliment him on his hair, which is the kind of beautiful thick mane that Trump covets). Velázquez described that he used to pick strawberries and broccoli and asked, if Trump deports everyone he wants, who will do that work and how much will food prices go up. ...

{snip}

...Trump immediately said he was the best thing to happen to farmers. He seemed to suggest he would bring back the bracero [temporary foreign worker] program (since Elon Musk has begun paying Trump’s bills, Trump has been pushing to greatly expand legal immigration). But he ultimately didn’t answer the question. It was an unresponsive answer to a question that every person who imagines themselves a journalist should be asking.

That wasn’t the only challenging question Trump dodged. After 25 minutes, José Saralegui asked Trump why he lied about the Haitians in Springfield. After 33 minutes, Ramiro González, a Republican who has dropped his registration in the party, invited Trump to win back his support by explaining his inaction on January 6. Trump not only offered the platitudes he always does, lied about his supporters bringing guns, and used the first person plural to align himself with the mob (which may end up being useful to Jack Smith), but he did not answer the question. By that point, a number of the viewers in the audience had a hostile body language to Trump. After 40 minutes, Jesús González asked Trump to explain his gun control policy to victims of school shootings. After 43 minutes, Carlos Aguilera asked Trump if he still considered climate change a hoax...

[stuff in square brackets, above, mine]


Gosh.

As Ms. Wheeler points out, aren't those the kinds of questions that actual journalists used to ask?



______
Earworm in the header?....The Own Eee Ders!



.

The Season For Training And Camping Is Now Officially Over.

WhenWestWas

EastVille


Given that this year's edition of the Canuckleheads appear, at least for the moment, to be playing like a brand new expansion team...




Wasn't that something?

And, despite the fact that he was only 34 at the time, isn't it amazing to realize that O. J. Kurtenbach still looks like he's your Dad in that video.

As for the big Irishman, Pat Quinn....Don't forget that he was at the time little more than a Maple Laff's cast-off who's main claim to fame was knocking Bobby Orr out cold with a vicious 'shelbow' in the 1969 playoffs.

Ahhhh...

The old days.

When the boards were clean and you could take the whole family, and maybe the kid down the street as well, to the game without skipping an entire mortgage payment.

Imagine that!

.

My Afternoon Ride.

EastOfEden
AlmostSookeVille


We came over to the People's Republic of South Van Isle again with eleventy billion running maniacs.

It was a full ferry on a flip-flop infested Friday night, but all went smoothly.

And all went pretty much as well as it could go with our grown-up kids getting together with their cousins on both sides of the family,  in shifts, through the Thanksgiving weekend.

As for me, I took a bit of break Saturday afternoon and rode out to Matheson Lake.

The idyll was it, news on the dead tree page, included.

Monday will be crazy times on the trip back across the Salish Sea I reckon.

Selah.

.

No Official Role.

CircumentingThe

SixVille


Courtesy Marcy Wheeler, the following is the entire first paragraph from special prosecutor Jack Smith's (Anti) Immunity Brief in the case of The United States of America v. Donald Trump.

Very strong, straightforward language.

Essentially, Smith has cut out the White House/official business ties to make it clear that Mr. Trump acted culpably as a private person/candidate with 'no official role' in the election fraud case. 

This was necessary given the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling that US'ian Presidents are immune from prosecution when they engage in official acts.

Importantly, it was the (non-supreme) judge in the case who unsealed portions of Mr. Smith's brief in redacted form.

This could get most interesting as folks work to figure out who all the redacted co-conspirators are. Ms. Wheeler, who really, really pays attention to this stuff, has already thrown the first pitch in that particular name game.

.

The Savvy Comes To Lotusland.

KierensLewisAndCamp
TheyAreMostDecidedlyNotVille


Jay Rosen, a media watcher down south, began to decry the emergence of 'The Cult Of Savviness' in the US'ian world of political journalism more than a decade ago:

...(M)ost of the people who report on politics aren’t trying to advance an ideology. But I think they have an ideology, a belief system that holds their world together and tells them what to report about. It’s not left, or right, or center, really. It’s trickier than that. The name I’ve given to the ideology of our political press is savviness.

In politics, our journalists believe, it is better to be savvy than it is to be honest or correct on the facts. It’s better to be savvy than it is to be just, good, fair, decent, strictly lawful, civilized, sincere, thoughtful or humane. Savviness is what journalists admire in others. Savvy is what they themselves dearly wish to be. (And to be unsavvy is far worse than being wrong.)

Savviness is that quality of being shrewd, practical, hyper-informed, perceptive, ironic, “with it,” and unsentimental in all things political. And what is the truest mark of savviness? Winning, of course! Or knowing who the winners are...

Well.

Just in case you missed it, the latest wave of the cult of the savvy has arrived in Lotusland.

It has washed up on our shores in the form of a podcast called 'Hotel Pacifico' that it is currently being hosted by a couple of old, apparently now out of the game but likely still very much plugged-in, pols from each side of the Lotuslandian political divide, Mike McDonald and Geoff Meggs. They are joined by former corpmedia journo turned Comms runner for one of Vancouver's biggest foundations, Kate Hammer.

I decided to give it a regular listen during the election campaign thinking I might learn something about what the two big sides are really about, what they really want to do, and how and why they are doing the things they are doing during the current campaign.

After all, these are insiders who know what's really what, right?

And, because they are no longer being reigned in by the bridle and bit of their political machines, they'll give us the straight goods and take a real chance by telling us what they really think, right?

Wrong.

Because, except for one interesting episode on battleground ridings with Richard Zussman, mostly notable for the zingers that Zussman hurled at McDonald for his past electoral campaign state(r)gies, it has pretty much been nothing but paper-thin wafers of minutiae wrapped around huge, glop-laden bangers stuffed to bursting with the savvy.

Which is fine, as far as it goes, I guess.

Until, of course, the savvy swells and swells until it finally explodes in everyone's faces to little apparent chagrin and, instead, much laughter.

Just like it did on Friday's episode with Kory Teneycke:

G. Meggs: So, Kory was challenging BC United to die with dignity. On a scale of zero to ten how did he do?

K. Hammer: (through the giggles) How much dignity was there?

K. Teneycke: Zero being, you know, 'your corpse being dragged through the streets behind a chariot' and ten being 'a respectful funeral', I'll give him about a four.

M. McDonald: That's generous.

K. Teneycke: Ya. I don't know. Umm. Ya. It's ahh, it was ultimately, ahh, a made sort of action.

Instead of actually asking the noted Conservative insider, Mr. Teneycke, what he meant when he said that the political killing of the Soccer Party was a  'made sort of action', and why, the local folks immediately made jokes about how it it was 'more like a murder' and that it 'was more like a pillow' that did the deed. This led the suddenly off-the-hook Teneycke to further joke that, because it happened in B.C., it was likely done with 'a giant syringe of opioids'.

Gosh.

With quips like that there is really no need for 'Air Quotes', eh?

Zero stars.


_____

Subheader ghost in the machine?....This!

.

What, He Worry?

AllHisRowdy

FriendsVille


In case you missed it, it looks like Kevin Falcon's demolition of the B.C. Soccer Party is going to cost you and yours money.

The following is from a report by Karin Larsen published by the CBC last week before the writ came down:

Taxpayers could be bailing out B.C. United for upwards of a million dollars for the severance owed to 25 of the party's caucus employees who are about to lose their jobs.

The Official Opposition party brought the request to the Legislative Assembly Management Committee (LAMC) on Monday because it doesn't have enough money to cover the severances.

A motion to "authorize" and "facilitate" the severance packages was passed by the committee after in-camera discussion. Committee member and government House leader Ravi Kahlon told CBC News the price tag will be over a million dollars...

So.

Should the Mr. Falcon have foreseen this significant consequence of his action and built this expense into the deal he made with the honourable Mr. Rustad?

Of course he should have:

...LAMC and Green Party member Adam Olsen said whatever money is left in B.C. United caucus and non-returning MLA constituency coffers will be used for the severances first. Only then will additional dollars from the legislative assembly budget kick in.

"This was [LAMC] doing our business and this was us recognizing that all this funding comes from the legislature anyway," said Olsen. "This is something Kevin Falcon probably should have dealt with before shutting down operations."...

And, even if Mr. Rustad had not ponied up, it's not like Mr. Falcon does not have friends with deep pockets.

After all, he once raised big money, in just one night, for that noted paragon of good sense and good government that I'm sure all of those former Soccer Party centrist voters could get behind, Maxime Bernier.


______

And don't get me wrong...These folks, some of whom apparently worked for the previous iteration of the Soccer Party for as much as two decades, should receive their severance...It's just somewhat surprising that Mr. Falcon seems not to have thought of/taken care of these long term loyalists before he pushed the self-destruct button.


.

Sunday Set...Harvest, With Or Without Moon.

HeirOfThe
LoomsVille

I wrote this awhile back:

Just before she passed away, in 2001, my Grandma E., who always liked to tell people, especially real doctors, that her grandson was also a 'doctor', asked me if I was ever going to finish going to school.

At the time I'd already been holding down a 'real' academic job long enough that I also had tenure.

Which meant that I was a lifer.

So I smiled and told her no - I was going to go to school until I retired, maybe longer.

Not sure what she thought about that...

The point?

Well, September, and the start of school, is always the real New Year for me.

And this particular New Year has been an extra busy one as I've picked up an extra course this term. Of course that has threatened to cut into time spent in the lab but  I've done my best to make sure it doesn't which means, well, time.

Of course, September is also harvest time, as the image at the top of the post, which is just a small portion of C's tomato bounty this year.

Which brings us to this month's Sunday Set.

It consists of a couple of tunes from Uncle Neil, one from Alex Chilton and Chris Bell (it's not the one with September in the title), and a wee bit of Gord's Gold just to make sure we keep up with can-con-on-the-interwebz bonafides.

Why that last one from Mr. Lightfoot, really?

Because the cold winds of November will be here soon enough.

OK?

______
My Dad always hated the start of school when he was a kid because it ruined the party...His birthday is September 4th.

And, for the record, I'm not a real doctor...Also, I never force the kids I work with to use that moniker...It's dumb, especially given that everything I learned about teaching I actually learned while working at summer camp...As for the other stuff?...Well, just like a decent welder, auto-mechanic, or tugboat driver, I had a good long apprenticeship that has served me well.


.

I Read The News Today, Oh Boy...

WritDropping
TimeVille

...And decided to go read Mr.  Dr. Beer 'N Hockey instead:

...No government in Canada (Manitoba is still catching up after the recent 7 year rule of a f*cked up Conservative government very much like BC's own Conservatives) got us through the Covid years better. This is notable because emergencies are when governments are supposed to shine yet rarely do so.

Despite the enormous challenges faced over the past four years our province has continued to excel. The outlook for housing, healthcare, the environment, community safety, employment, affordability and more all look promising. The Taylor Swift Free Press trusts David Eby to continue to fulfill that promise and deliver more of what British Columbians need in the next four years...

Fire away!


_____
Today's ear worm in the sub-header is a bit of stretch, although it does have tangential relevance to one of our most difficult problems that will not be solved by throwing harm reduction out with the bath water...Beer, as is his want, goes for something a little more traditional from the Bard of Barking.

.

My Morning Ride.

ForgetItJake
It'sSoccerTownVille


The image above was taken at 25th and Oak in Central Lotusland this morning, Sept 10, 2024.

And you thought we were done with him and his?

Ha!

BC United says it will run a select number of candidates in the Oct. 19 election after suspending its province-wide campaign to support the B.C. Conservative Party.

The number of candidates and their names or ridings have not yet been announced.

The move is intended to ensure BC United remains a registered political party with Elections B.C., executive director Lindsay Cote said in a letter to members on Friday.

On Aug. 28, BC United Leader Kevin Falcon suspended the ­party’s campaign and released his candidates; many of them learned about the decision from the media.

The “gut-wrenching” decision was made to defeat the NDP and secure “a free-enterprise ­victory” in the provincial ­election, said Cote, adding the move did not “fold our party or erase our organization.”

By running some candidates, BC United will later be able to have a thorough discussion with its membership about the future of the party, she said. “If there is a desire within our membership to rebuild the party, and a plausible path to do so, we want to be in a position to act on this,” said Cote...

_____

The pull quote, above, is the lede from a story by Cindy Harnett, who has been doing good work following the twists and turns of the Soccer Party's recent machinations, in last Saturday's Times-Colonist.

Of course, Marky Mark thinks this is all a conspiracy to keep the true and good liberals of British Columbia (i.e. those who willingly got into bed with the Campbelleros and jumped at the chance to be a  part of Clarklandia for fifteen years straight) down ...Or some such thing.

Earworm in the sub-header?...This.

.

Founders v. Stooges?

Where'sMo

Ville

By now you may have heard about the story of the Russians from the no-longer-so-venerable Kremlin propaganda pusher called 'RT' that used an American 'media' front....errrr....'outlet' to funnel millions of dollars to YouTube influencers with pre-existing anti-Ukranian views who are now claiming that they were innocent stooges in the enterprise.

But what of the founders who set up and ran Tenet Media, the outlet/front that allegedly funnelled the millions into the open gullets of the innocent stooges?

Well, here's a bit of their story, courtesy of Jonathan Montpetit and Aloysious Wong of the CBC:

...The media outlet was unnamed in the indictment (from the US DoJ), but it was clear from details within that the charges referred to Tenet Media, founded in 2023 by the Canadian influencer known as Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan...

{snip}

...Neither Chen, Donovan nor (Canadian influencer Lauren) Southern are the subject of criminal charges, and none are named in the indictment.

But the allegations have jeopardized their standing within right-wing circles.

Chen has already been fired from another conservative website, Glenn Beck's The Blaze. Her YouTube channel, which had more than 572,000 subscribers, was terminated on Thursday. And her bio page on the website for Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump campus activist group, has been deleted.

YouTube also removed Tenet Media's channel on Thursday, saying "it violated our community guidelines."...

So. 

Did the Founders, Ms. Chen and/or Mr Donovan, know that they were acting as an RT front for the funnelling of Kremlin-Kash to the Stooges?

Well...

Emptywheel thinks that, despite the claims to the contrary that are (very likely) sure to come, there is evidence, based on past, pre-Ukranian invasion performance, that this just may be the case:

... As the indictment describes, before the invasion of Ukraine, Chen got paid directly from RT...And Donovan got paid by RT and Ruptly until later than that: May 2022...

{snip}

...So Chen and Donovan used to work directly for RT, and then just about the time of the Ukrainian invasion, set up shop in the US (by starting Tenet media), allegedly participating in a ruse by which they hid the Russian source of their funding...

{snippety}

...Chen set up this business such that she’d be subject to the laws of and some tax burdens in both Canada and the US. She did that at precisely the moment where the impending invasion of Ukraine made such issues more sensitive. And since then, she has done things that provide some evidence that she’s in on the ruse: that she knows she’s evading some laws or regimes by using corporate and financial cut-outs.

Those things likely provide enough to make her US accounts subject to probable cause warrants...

This could get really interesting if the warrants start to fly and the stooges start flipping.

Assuming they haven't already.

Started flipping I mean.


.

A Reminder Of What This Holiday Is All About.

WorkingForThe

UnionVille

I honestly can't remember how I stumbled across Ellen Bloom's blog many years ago.

Especially because it is decidedly apolitical. Essentially, Ellen roam's Los Angeles and takes pictures. When she's not doing that she digs up historical pictures and vignettes. Or she tells stories about her family and its history.

None of those individual topics really give me a charge on their own, but I get such a kick out of Ellen's enthusiasm, photographic skills, and charm that I always look forward to her next post.

Today's post, honouring Labour Day, is just a wee bit different. I was particularly struck by this bit:

...I spent over 45 years in the work force. Some of that time was spent as a union member, working at various movie studios throughout Los Angeles. Today, I am reaping the benefits of full-time, corporate employment thanks to the labor movement's accomplishments over the years for equal rights, better working conditions and equal pay. Thank you...

Well said, no?

_____

I just remembered the 'how'....Ukulele Uber Alles!

.

Carnac....errrr...Falcon The Magnificent?

AllHisVistas'R

TheirsVille

Perhaps a better title, regardless whether or not it was bestowed by the ghost of Ed McMahon, would actually be 'Falcon the Omniscient'.

At least according to the good Mr. Falcon himself.

The following is from Cindy Harnett's piece in today's Times-Colonist that we mentioned in an update to yesterday's post:

...Falcon said he has apologized to caucus and staff, saying he would have loved to have had talked beforehand, and ­acknowledged he understood “the anger, the disappointment, sense of betrayal, whatever the emotion is, I totally understand.”

“But what they have to understand from me is that I have a different vista than they all do,” said Falcon. “I see and know way more things than they do.”...

The all seeing and all knowing, indeed.

Interestingly, and perhaps a bit surprisingly, neither Mr. Falcon nor any of his 'aides' has made any mention whatsoever of sealed envelopes in a mayonnaise jar sitting on Funk and Wagnall's porch since noon on Wednesday.


.

Will Mr. Rustad Whack His Whackaloons?

BackroomFever
SchemesVille

________

Sunday morning update at the bottom of the post.

________

Well, well well, whadd'ya know...

According to Rob Shaw at least, writing in the now glacierified Orca media outlet, the Con/Soccer Party deal began when a couple of surrogates got together in a backwaterish-type room:

...It started Sunday, when Caroline Elliott, the United candidate for West Vancouver-Capilano, former party vice president and Falcon’s sister-in-law, reached out by text to Angelo Isidorou, the Conservative party’s executive director. Would he be willing to meet and talk about where things are at, she asked...

{snip)

...Elliott and Isidorou sat down at Browns Socialhouse in North Vancouver’s Lonsdale area for an informal chat Sunday evening — two trusted interlocutors from either side feeling out, over a Guinness, whether there was enough common ground for a formal meeting...

Now, leaving aside the fact that the two bosses lacked to the intestinal fortitude to start the 'talks' themselves for the moment, here's what, again according to the esteemed Mr. Shaw, happened next:

...Tuesday, at 2 p.m., Elliott and United executive director Lindsay Coté gathered in a boardroom in Vancouver with Isidorou and Conservative president Aisha Estey.

The Conservative staffers took the meeting with low expectations. Some of the same people had tried unsuccessfully to broker a deal in May. The failure to do so, had led to three BC United MLAs defecting to the Conservatives...

More lackeys!

Quelle surprise.

But then, if the extremely insightful and plugged-in(able) Mr. Shaw is correct about all tis, things got downright interesting, and just a wee bit Machiavellian:

"...United then offered up its large package of opposition research on controversial views held by Conservative candidates (the party had been planning to release information on a Conservative candidate who believes in the chemtrails conspiracy on Wednesday, but did not) and divulged which Conservative candidates it believes have documented problematic views."...

And, so, did Mr. Rustad take the bait?

According to the exalted Mr. Shaw, who appears to have reached the highest of high points on this story that no other Ledgie Boy has even begun to scale so far, the answer is yes.

...Rustad had for months refused to consider any deal with United where it would require him to dismiss candidates he’d previously recruited and were loyal to his party — even if they ended up being revealed to have extreme views on social policies, science and COVID-19 vaccines.

The question he faced now was, would it be worth compromising on that position, and replace a few candidates with United members, if it meant removing the United party off the board entirely for the Oct. 19 election?

Ultimately, he agreed...

So, no matter how hard super fine folks like, say, Marky Mark, who used to have backroom clout, try to deny that it could happen, it is entirely possible that Mr. Rustad will soon try to jettison the flotsam as he starts to tack back towards the center.

The only problem with such a strategy, which would, of course, welcome any and all deflector media spike spin from very fine 'columnists' who work for previously not-so-secret right-sided prop organs, is that it will be pretty hard for Mr. Rustad to jettison himself.

If you get my (way, way,  rightward) drift.


______

Sunday morning update: Cindy Harnett has a story up at the Times Colonist that confirms the broad strokes of Mr. Shaw's story including the players, the rooms and the handing over of the oppo research...What it does not have is Mr. Rustad taking the bait/agreeing. Instead, Harnett quotes Falcon saying that he got a 'commitment' from Rustad to work in 'good faith' taking Falcon's 'advice' which he could 'choose to ignore'...Oh, ya, and Falcon also conceded that his actions in the days prior to Wednesday's announcement of the big deal may have been viewed 'as perhaps' duplicitous...You think?

.

Did The Kevinator Do The Deal To Prevent a Klout Klub Takeover?

MakingMachiavelli
BlushVille


Earlier this afternoon we wondered if the Kevinator acted alone when he made the deal with the Whackaloons to blow-up the Soccer Party.

Now, reader Lew E. has brought the following to our attention:

Gosh.

Is it possible that the Klout Klub tried to hijack the whole thing?

Well...

I dunno for sure, but it is clear that Marky Mark is spoiling for a Klout Klub Kat Fight:

Imagine that!

_____

Update: Re: The rumoured KK hijacking...Why, exactly, would Marky Mark question/care whether or not the Kevinator has the authority to make like John Candy and blow things up real good on his own?

These super fine folks do know that we're watching what they do and say, right?

.

Is The Kevinator Acting Alone?

AManOfDubious

ConvictionVille

I'm writing this early Thursday afternoon as the news of the BC Liberal party 'folding' is just starting to hit the Wurlitzer.

So, things will likely be a little clearer later in the day after we have heard from both Mr. Falcon and Mr. Rustad, the leader of the far, far right Whackaloon party that appears to have stomped on the corpse of whatever teensy, tiny bit of 'centre' still remained in the now defunct Campbell/Clark-Off Soccer Party.

But here is something interesting that might be worth returning to in the aftermath, from the Canadian Press:

Mike Bernier, who represents Peace River South, said he's been unable to reach BC United Leader Kevin Falcon amid reports the party is folding, while the rival BC Conservative Party says Leader John Rustad will be making a "major statement" about the election at 2:40 p.m.

Bernier said he called the meeting because there's "obviously something going on" but he was unable to say exactly what, and his phone has been "blowing up" with calls from concerned staff and other MLAs....

Hmmm...Does this mean that Mr. Falcon has done the deed/taken the deal from the Whackaloons on his own?

That must be some deal if the early reports are correct that Mr. Falcon has been telling anyone who listen that he will not run in the upcoming election.

.