Sunday, August 20, 2017

The Never-Ending Shame of Andrew Scheer



It took him days before he summoned up the courage to say anything about the way Ezra Levant's hate mongering Rebel had disgraced itself, and Canada, with its appalling coverage of that white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.

You know, the one where the deplorable  bigot Faith Goldy somehow managed to turn an ugly Nazi hootenanny into a bouncy Beach Party.



Where the Nazis were the good guys, and those who opposed them were The Enemy. 

Until the car arrived.



But even after that horror show, Scheer still couldn't bring himself to condemn the Rebel and its depraved master by name. Only promising to stay away until its "editorial direction changed." 

As if Ezra Levant could ever change, 

So needless to say, when the CBC's Carol MacNeil asked Scheer to explain himself yesterday, he couldn't.

And he never looked and sounded weaker or more pathetic.



But then what could Scheer say? When he's terrified of alienating his rabid base, who he counts on to send the Cons bags of hate dollars. He himself is a religious fanatic, and a stealthy right-wing extremist.

And as Richard Warnica points out in this excellent report on the rise and fall of Levant's Rebel, Scheer and many of his Cons have long been Levant groupies.

Scheer has done several one-on-one interviews with The Rebel, including one after his victory, and one in December with Levant. He twice listed The Rebel as one of his go-to news sources, both during and after his leadership campaign. He hired (Hamish) Marshall, at the time one of three Rebel board members and perhaps its most important business cog, to run his campaign.

Even if Scheer doesn't want to talk about it.

He didn’t address what was different about The Rebel now, or how it had changed from May, when he was happy to call it go-to-read. He didn’t answer questions about Marshall, or his ties, or whether they ever came up during the campaign.

Or answer the burning question, why NOW? 

Nothing The Rebel did this week, as Conservatives and contributors edged away, was substantially different from what it had two months ago, or six months ago or last year. 

The message was always there. 

So ask yourself: What changed? Why did they really walk away?

Think of this story as a parable. Ask yourself what it means, about where you live and who matters, who gets to matter in 2017. 

Ask yourself: Where could this go?

Andrew Scheer knew only too well who Ezra Levant was, and that he peddled hate for profit.

But still he cavorted with him in a most indecent manner, until just the other day...



So now he must denounce him, even if it costs him half his rabid base,

Or admit that he is unfit to lead any party in Canada, and resign tomorrow.

Give thanks for the good people of Vancouver who turned out by the thousands yesterday to send a message to the bigots.



And defend our Canadian values.

Give thanks for a prime minister who would cheer them on.


Now ask yourself what kind of Canada we would be living in if Andrew Scheer was prime minister.

And then work to destroy him and his alt-right Cons, and their grotesque buddy Ezra Levant.

Before they poison our country further.

And destroy our beautiful Canada...



21 comments:

jrkrideau said...

I think we have a new piece of performance art, ”The Scheer Squirm”

I can see why Scheer might have a problem explaining why he was on a alt-right hate-spewing show to begin with and even more, explaining his rodent and sinking ship act now.

Anonymous said...

I am so proud of our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. I often think of how different things would be had Harper won, especially since that dreadful and disgusting night last November.

Anonymous said...

After that interview I think Scheer should be known as "the eel".What a coward. Keep up the pressure Simon, don't let him wriggle away.

Anonymous said...

Actually I thought he did quite well at deflecting the fact that his party is anti Muslim and if I was closet racist or well off asshole (as opposed to being a poor asshole) I would be defending him and slamming the CBC.

In other words his base will support him.

Jaundiced Eye said...

What is it with Vancouver NDP MP Don Davis? He advised anti-racism demonstrators to stay away from the white-supremacist rally because it would only encourage more such bad behaviour. Gosh! That's just so NDP sometimes: a party that often displays a confused relationship with aggressive polical activism. The BC NDP had to be reduced to two seats, then tear itself apart when its new leader refused to move in for the kill when its arch rival was foist upon his own petard (that is, when Premier Gordon Campbell's HST lie forced his resignation in disgrace), then the next leader blew a 20-point lead by insisting on a "positive politics" campaign that precluded any "negative" stumping.

Finally the BC NDP got a leader who understands that sometimes---like during election campaigns---politics gets a little aggressive (just before the last campaign officially began, BC Liberal premier Christy Clark baselessly accused the NDP of hacking her party's website, and NDP leader John Horgan immediately threatened legal action, forcing Christy to backpeddle for a crucial week before apologizing on Horgan's answering service, and ultimately losing her party's majority).

I advised John Horgan to keep up the good work, to parry with the BC Liberals punch for punch, never missing a jab or uppercut. What I got in return was a long email from a campaign staffer condescendingly lecturing me that "we in the NDP" are far above that kind of street brawling---and that's what voters want. Jeez, does experience not count for anything? Thank Jesus John didn't (and doesn't) subscribe to that kind of snooty disdain for getting into a fight and mixing it up for things one believes in.

How on earth somebody could think it's better to passively turn the other cheek in the face of racist rallies is totally beyond me. Fortunately the Vancouver mayor, the new NDP premier and the prime minister of Canada unequivocally endorsed the anti-racist demonstrators, and the thousands who turned out dwarfed the racists with celebrations of love, sisterhood and brotherhood, and respect for all people as equals...

...when they could have just stayed home so's not to encourage them. I'm thinking the racists won't be rallying in Vancouver again anytime soon.

John B. said...

"Until the car arrived."

I think you've got something there. Let's consider the ranges of what reactions might have been from all of the "many sides" to this poor man's Nuremberg Rally, if that guy hadn't smashed his car into that crowd.

The disturbing spectacle on display the Friday night prior was enough for me. It would make little difference to me if there'd only been a couple dozen of them.

Anonymous said...

Poor Andrew, spent all that time building up the Rebel as a respectable news source only to have it all come crashing down due to a few miscalculations on Ezra's part. Grudgingly he has had to put a little distance between them but still very hopeful that the public will forget and the propaganda machine will be up to full strength before the next election. Toxic disinformation provided by the Rebel and a few hacked files can be strategically amplified by third party trolls and bots to flood social media. This acts as a strong incentive for the support base to get out and vote while seeding doubt in the minds of the undecided and supporters of the targeted party causing them to vote for other parties or just stay at home on the belief that where there is so much smoke there must be some fire. The ultimate toxic campaign but legal as long as a link between the "news" and the Cons cannot be proven. Its all just free speech amplified by non human bots .. what can be wrong with that?
Hopefully the Rebel will not recover and voters will only have to contend with Con rhetoric and that generated by biased but only mildly toxic sources such as the Frazer institute and the Post.
RT

David said...

I don't think this will be the end of Faith Goldy's career in "broadcast journalism". I'm guessing she may end up writing for the Sun News newspaper chain and/ or launching an independent broadcast on Youtube.

Anonymous said...

You know what I would love to see is Cheeto Mussolini's Master Bates Motel in Vancouver get bought by a citizen crowdfunding campaign and turned into refugee housing.

This time, save the T-R-U-M-P lettering. Just remove it, rearrange it, and add some additional letters to dedicate the building to P-M-T-R-U...D-E-A-U.

Anonymous said...

As an American, I'm proud of him too. This idiot is delusional. He's the worst kind of celebrity stalker: a celebrity who stalks other celebrities. (See also Salma Hayek, Carla Bruni and poor Princess Diana.) Trump thinks Trudeau is his best buddy because (for strategic purposes only) Trudeau has refrained from describing him how he obviously really thinks of him, even taking to Twitter (as usual) to call the PM "my new found friend." Hearken back to January and the Sainte-Foy massacre. What kind of "friend" gets six fellow countrymen of the other "friend" killed as a result of his toxic rhetoric? What kind of "friend" calls the other "friend" a "disgrace" and doesn't even get his job title right? (Canada doesn't have a "president," and so obviously Trudeau does not call himself that.)

What kind of "friend" tries to cripple the financial security of people whose futures the other "friend" is responsible for (NAFTA and Canada's interconnected economic relationship with the U.S.) because he's so insecure as to be jealous that the younger "friend" has a firmer handshake, a beautiful wife who actually does love him, and is more intelligent, better-looking and far more popular? (Not to mention Ivanka's evident schoolgirl crush.) Moreover, what kind of "friend" insinuates a boldfaced lie about a rebuffed seduction by the other "friend's" mother at a seedy New York hotel (as the equally toxic Levant "reported" in his smear campaign against Margaret Trudeau)?

If and when Trump gets tossed out (either by impeachment or losing reelection), the GOP is reduced to fewer seats than the Deez Nuts party, and a general sense of sanity returns to Washington (unlikely, but possible, I guess), I'm sure the U.S. won't be the only place the celebratory beverages will be flowing. There'll be 99 bottles of Molson flying off every wall in Canada, from Halifax to Vancouver to probably even Santa's workshop way up in Alert. As well pretty much everywhere around the world. (Except, maybe, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Riyadh and Manila.)

Simon said...

his jrkrideau... That would be an excellent name for that piece of performance art. I thought for a moment Scheer was going to squirm right out of his clothes, or heaven forbid stop smiling like a maniac. But I guess that's what happens when you're caught between a rock and a hard place...

Simon said...

h anon 1:04pm...yes, I must say I'm glad we have a prime minister like Justin Trudeau at a time like this one. And I can only imagine what kind of horror we might be living through, if Stephen Harper had won the last election. Trump and Harper would have been a deadly combination, and we really did dodge a bullet...

Simon said...

hi anon 1:47 am...I really like this and I don't drink myself:

There'll be 99 bottles of Molson flying off every wall in Canada, from Halifax to Vancouver to probably even Santa's workshop way up in Alert.

And you're right, the night Trump goes goes down we'll be partying from Tuktoyaktuk to Texas. It will be the best Canada-U.S. party EVER. I realize it's sometimes easy to get depressed with that maniac in power, but thinking of Trump heading off, hopefully in handcuffs, always cheers me up... :)

Simon said...

hi anon...OMG please don't mention eels, the very thought makes me squirm. In Britain (England) they serve them jellied, and just one look at them makes me want to vomit. But then so do Scheer and his ghastly Cons. So don't worry I won't stop fighting them until they are jellied and we are safe... ;)

Simon said...

hi anon...I'm not sure you're right about that. I'm sure some in his base would support him if he shot somebody on Fifth Avenue or Yonge Street. But others I'm sure are annoyed that he is not defending The Rebel as they feel it should be defended. So it's a double bladed sword. And one must remember that the Cons can't depend just on their base to win an election, and looking evasive when talking about somebody like Levant will not win Scheer many new friends...

Simon said...

hi Geoffrey...please don't ask me any questions about the NDP, it's just too painful. I actually voted for them in the last federal election, and I've been trying to remember why I did it ever since. They have a lot of good people, I'm sentimentally attached to them, and I don't like criticizing progressive parties. But sometimes they seem to exist in their own parallel universe. And the idea of not standing up to the fascists is ridiculous. We clearly have a major fascist infestation, and it's important to let them know in no uncertain terms what we think about them. I'm not saying we should go at them with baseball bats, as I'm sorry to say I once did when I was a hot headed teenager, but we do need to make our presence felt, so the NDP should go back to the drawing board with that one...

Simon said...

hi John...I agree with you, I thought that Friday night Tiki torch march was deeply disturbing. The sight of those preppy looking fascists chanting "blood and soil" really blew my mind. Where are they coming from, and who the hell do they think they are? It looked like a scene out of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. We need to find those pods and destroy them before they hatch... ;)

Simon said...

hi RT...I don't think the Rebel will ever recover. It will limp on, but it will be forever tarnished by Faith Goldy's ghastly performance, which finally made many Canadians aware of how low Levant has fallen. And as I mentioned above, I don't think Scheer can win either since he really is caught between a rock and a hard place. Some of the Rebel rabble are now calling Scheer a "globalist" while more moderate Cons are horrified that Levant could stoop so low. And if that sleazy freak continues to court Trump in order to maximize his income in the U.S., he will do the Cons major damage, and cement their image as Canada's Trump Party. Hey, with enemies like them, who needs friends...;)

Simon said...

hi David...I don't think any in the MSM, even the Sun, would hire Goldy after her Nazi extravaganza. But she might make a few bucks on her own YouTube channel which she has talked about doing in the past, especially if she does a pole dance every now and then. And of course, if Der Stormer is hiring she definitely should apply...

Simon said...

hi anon 1:31...yes, that would be good. Turn every Trump hotel into refugee housing. If his presidency keeps going like it is, we should soon be able to buy them for almost nothing. From what I understand, these days the name Trump on any building is practically the kiss of death...

e.a.f. said...

in answer to your question regarding what type of country would we live in? well the one Stephen Harper had worked out and was still working on when he lost the election. People like him, Kelly Leitch, Scheer have an agenda they don't want many in the main stream to know about. Now its out there. I'm sure I am not the only one who didn't know who and how many were being interviewed by REbel or to the extent they were. I'm appalled, but it is freedom of speech, until it turns to hate speech. We do have to be very careful not to restrict freedom of speech, as much as we dislike what people have to say. Now I for one don't like Levant's message or that of a lot of Cons, but they do have the right to say it, until it turns violent or becomes hate speech.