That $90,000 cheque . . .

WE SHOULD BE

This could cause more damage than all of the Stevie gaffes to date, because it won't play in the beer parlors aka "sports bars", where the politically unaware and ignorant hang out. These people are unsophisticated, and things like Global Warming and the Tar Sands pipelines confuse. BC should be a reminder; all of the "Progressive" Canuck poliblogs were pronouncing Christie Clark toast. So, what happened? Simple, the ignorant voted for what they could understand. People can understand greed when they look at Duffy.

 — Sen. Maximus Avaritius —

Sociopaths are people, too, and as long as you're not one of their targets, hail, fellow well met, just don't get in their way, by doing stupid things like asking for accountability. It costs to live well, socially. As we see from Nigel's largesse, these sociopaths can afford to be gracious when it suits them — or when they are sufficiently shamed by publicity, or are on the wrong end of a 12-gauge.

Yon Duffy has a porky aspect, to bash the Bard, that plays so obscenely well. To Duffy, the Senate was an All-You-Can-Eat buffet of expensed perks: the Porkarama of Patronage. T-t-that's all, folks.

Tubes Time . . . .

Per McClatchy, and still breaking: (Updates below the fold)

Alaska's Sen. Ted Stevens indicted by federal grand jury
Erika Bolstad | McClatchy Newspapers
July 29, 2008 01:03:49 PM

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate and one of the chamber's most powerful members, was indicted Tuesday in Washington, a result of a year-long investigation into corruption in Alaska politics.

The 7-count indictment comes nearly one year after federal agents raided Stevens' home in Girdwood, a resort town about 40 miles south of Anchorage. The Justice Department has scheduled a press conference for 1:20 p.m. to announce the indcitment.

Wonder if those internet "tubes" will be flushing him down the drain soon ? ? ? ?


Update: Matt Stoller from Open Left has a great post on the Congressional cronyism surrounding this and the "club" in general. He is right on target, as usual . . . .

Update #2: Liddy Dole bails on "Tubular Ted" . . . .

Update #3: "Tubular Ted" pleads innocent . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Mythbusting. The Canadian Armed Forces are not a substitute for jail.

You have to wonder how violent this sexual assault was? What was established is that the offender, a member of the Canadian Forces, did not have the consent of his victim and did try to hide the incident. For that he gets 15 months community service, 18 months probation and a $1,500 fine.

A soldier based at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier outside Quebec City was sentenced Friday to 15 months of community service for sexually assaulting a young woman.

April Reign quite properly questions the leniency of the sentence in this case. I will take on the other point.

Provincial court Judge Carol Saint-Cyr rejected the defence's request for an unconditional discharge, which would have allowed Pte. Pier-Olivier Boulet, 22, to serve a tour in Afghanistan.

Oh yeah! That old chestnut! If jail can be avoided my client will dee-dee on down to the recruiting office and join the army right now. Or, in this case, My client is due to be shipped overseas to a combat zone. He's needed by his country and six months in action will clear up this whole thing and return a better citizen. What say you m'lord?

Not. Fucking. Likely.

Thankfully the judge wasn't buying any of it. When is the myth of "military service or jail" going to die? It is neither a valid defence nor a means of mitigating a sentence. The armed forces is not an alternative to prison/jail/punishment for convicted criminals. In Canada it never really has been, but certainly in the last 40 years most recruiters would turn away anybody with a criminal record, particularly where the offence involved any form of assault. Short assessment: Individuals with that kind of character flaw do not make good soldiers/sailors/airmen.

Then this:

The Department of National Defence will have the final word on whether Boulet is allowed to stay in the Canadian Forces.

Canadian Forces human resources officer Michel Arsenault had told Canadian Press that Boulet was a good soldier in his two years of service, but has a 95 per cent chance of losing his job in the military if he emerged from the trial with a criminal record.

Hold it.

Boulet was convicted in February. There has been plenty of time to appeal the verdict. Whether there was the possibility of a discharge or not, the conviction alone is enough in the Canadian Forces to release an individual under Queen's Regulations and Orders 15.01 item 5(F).

The chance of Boulet having his membership in the Canadian Forces unceremoniously terminated should be closer to 100 percent. In fact, it should have happened already.