The big fat ghost of the Duffster haunts Junior now …

OTTAWA — The Senate is still debating whether or not to invite former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to testify about the SNC-Lavalin affair and at least one senator wants former prime minister Stephen Harper to show up, too.

In a new twist to the weeks-long deliberations Thursday evening, one senator proposed expanding a committee study to discuss inappropriate interference by the Prime Minister’s Office in general, and inviting witnesses, including Harper and former aide Nigel Wright, to be questioned about the scandal around Sen. Mike Duffy, who still sits in the Senate.

It was yet another sign that tensions in an independent-majority upper chamber, where newer members are preoccupied by snuffing out partisanship, are starting to boil over.

Sen. Pierrette Ringuette, formerly a Liberal senator who is now part of the Independent Senators Group, proposed amending Conservative Sen. Don Plett’s motion, seeking to invite Wilson-Raybould to talk to the Senate legal committee, with a list of witnesses “with potential experience in past matters of alleged political interference, direction and pressure on parliamentarians and their work in the Office of the Prime Minister.” The list names Harper, three of his former top staff and several Conservative senators past and present.

Plett promptly accused her of trying to “make a mockery” out of a serious issue. “I am astounded, flabbergasted and offended,” he said, before debate was adjourned for the night.

After being shuffled from justice in January and resigning from cabinet in February, Wilson-Raybould testified at the House of Commons justice committee that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to inappropriately interfere in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin for political reasons — and that she suspected her decision not to bow to that pressure was the reason she lost the attorney general job. After the Liberal majority on that committee cut its investigation into the issue short, Conservatives in the Senate have argued there is unfinished business to complete.

They have also argued that if independent senators appointed by Trudeau are really independent, they will allow further study. As Plett put it Thursday evening, “If senators opposite vote against the motion that is before us, I submit they will be the ones in this chamber who are demonstrating blatant partisanship, partisanship on behalf of the current government.”

In the preamble to her amendment Ringuette noted that in Wilson-Raybould’s subsequent brief to the committee, which included an audio file that corroborated her earlier testimony, the former minister said, “I do not believe I have anything further to offer a formal process regarding this specific matter.”

“If anything, I find myself surprised by the outreach displayed by the members opposite. After all, PMO pressure on the Conservative government caucus of the Senate during the last Parliament is well documented,” Ringuette said, before reading from an Ontario Court of Justice decision that acquitted Sen. Mike Duffy of criminal charges in 2016.

Duffy had been caught in a scandal over whether he was a “primary” resident of the province he represented, Prince Edward Island, and over a $90,000 cheque Wright offered him to cover living expenses that Harper had ordered him to pay back to the Senate. Although the senator himself was cleared, the judge slammed the then-PMO’s “political, covert, relentless” puppeteering in the Senate as “mind boggling and shocking” and “unacceptable in a democratic society.”

“Perhaps the Senate ought to exercise some sober second thought on this matter as well. It never did. After all, what is good for the goose is also good for the gander,” Ringuette said.

Another independent senator tried to adjourn debate, but not before Plett got his reaction on the record.

“I’m not very often at a complete loss for words,” he began. “I think it is shameful that we would make such a mockery out of such a serious situation where Canadians have been cheated, where a prime minister is under investigation … where ministers have come down, condemning this prime minister and his government. Then for someone to bring people back from five and six and 10 years ago as if this is an amendment.”

Senators will have to deal with the amendment before they can decide on the original motion. Time is running out; Plett’s motion calls for a report by June 15. Meanwhile, more debate has yet to happen on a different motion from independent senator André Pratte. It seeks a special committee study on issues around the SNC-Lavalin affair, with a June 1 deadline, but stops short of inviting Wilson-Raybould herself.

Source: Ghost of Mike Duffy

Another gem from Stilton’s Place …

A great way to start of the day with my morning coffee …

Oscar Wilde was not a man you wanted on your bad side. A man of great intellect, piercing wit, and the gift of absolutely devastating quips, Wilde could eviscerate his opponents and critics using only his razor-sharp tongue.

Still, when Wilde was confronted by braying trolls who were mentally unequipped to appreciatethe subtleties of his scathing rhetoric, we’d like to imagine that he would instead wait for the buffoons in a darkened alley with a nail-studded truncheon and give them a sound thrashing about the head and shoulders to more effectively point out the errors in their blighted logic.

And this is the position we find ourselves in today, at least rhetorically. Because after watching what the Senate Democrats did on Wednesday to Attorney General Barr, a good and honorable man, we find ourselves without much of a sense of humor today. Our thoughts are instead drifting towards more kinetic and unconventional procedures for restoring something like decorum, dignity, and common decency to the Grand Guignol proceedings in Washington.

“Questioners” (who had very few actual questions, but a lot of unsubstantiated accusations and insults) included presidential wannabees like Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, as well as some
ilio wahine from Hawaii whose only conceivable public service to the people of her stinking, socialist island would involve appeasing the volcano gods with a personal sacrifice. And yes, she’s old – but based on her appearance and personality, we’re guessing that she still meets the minimum qualifications required for the job (wink-wink, nudge-nudge).

See, we’re still trying to joke here…but what we really feel is an all-consuming anger at these smug and morally vacuous liars and hypocrites. These are people who are still – STILL – trying to pull off a Presidential coup d’etat in the United States of America. Which isn’t something that any of us should take lightly…or forgivingly.

It is our great hope that Attorney General Barr, who endured the appalling partisan abuse with great poise and intelligence, will use this despicable incident to stoke his own internal fires…the ones whose flames will soon be roaring under the feet of many in the Obama administration, the Clinton circle, and the traitorous intelligence agencies that did their best to end our nation’s democracy.

All of them need to be brought to trial by Mr. Barr. And after due process has been carried out and verdicts reached, appropriate punishment must be meted out. Even if, per today’s cartoon, what’s “appropriate” may involve bringing back some historical methodologies which lacked subtlety, but clearly demonstrated that treason is not a game you want to play and lose.

One of Stilt’s finest !!! …

Source: Stilton’s Place