Proposed: Let's kill the Sun brand

Lego ends advertising with Daily Mail after calls for companies to 'Stop Funding Hate' 

Toy company responds to campaigners by saying it is 'not planning any future promotional activity' with the right-wing paper  

In august of 2010 The Toronto Sun called for Canada's response to the Tamil refugee crisis to be mass murder. Ships full of desperate refugees? "Lock and load" demanded the Sun.

Ezra Levant forced the Sun Empire to apologize to the entire Roma community after a racist rant and to George Soros after falsely accusing him of complicity in the holocaust.

The Sun chain ran a cartoon of Olivia Chow in a Mao suit.

About the only places you could find enthusiastic agreement with Stephen Harper's xenophobic race baiting campaign or the PQ's a year before that in Quebec were in the Sun chain.

As bad or worse crap appears in Sun papers across Canada with a numbing regularity, with casual, constant racism as a particular theme. 

But with newspaper advertising already bottoming out the Post Media empire would be excruciatingly vulnerable to tactics such as those used against the Daily Mail in the UK putting a spotlight on and turning on the pressure. I propose this since wherever you live in Canada the odds are good that both your supposedly sober and serious broadsheet and the local sun tabloid rag are probably put together in the same Post Media office and rolled off the same presses. 

Both papers are written and edited by the same staff, have the same right wing slant with a greater or lesser degrees of genteel civility applied, promoting and protecting the interests of the same vulture hedge fund on Wall Street and simply written to different mental age levels.

Why not just make the hateful, lowest common denominator Sun brand and voice completely economically nonviable?

It's not suppressing a diversity of voices, there already is none, just brand identities and slightly different flavors of piss being poured into your ears. If, as a nation, we are prepared to allow the entire ownership of the Canadian newspaper and TV news in our country be a group that could fit comfortably in one small office then why allow the pretense of diversity in it's absence?

It would be very, very easy for a mass movement to burn the Sun brand to the ground and dance in its ashes.

Who's with me?

Afraid to make the argument

"The inference was that there was no fat to be found in the system and that every penny was being wisely spent. In Tuesday’s budget, every department gets a boost in expenditures." 

The Herald raises a straw man argument here, a claim that of course the government isn't even making but of course the writers don't follow through with their unstated thesis, that the healthcare, education and infrastructure Albertans depend on are bloated, coddled and wasteful rather than falling apart and straining at every seam.

This is not an argument that can survive an encounter with the facts on the ground that their readership knows quite well.

Whenever the usual suspects bleat about how Alberta's social spending is so much higher than other provinces they are always playing the same sleazy little accounting trick of pegging the date range they are making that comparison to AFTER the departure of Klein. Factor the lost decade in and suddenly we are at the bottom of the spending pack.

Cleaning up after an irresponsible vandal is usually expensive.

The Fraser Institute's Incredible Shrinking Credibility

The American media notices just how much a joke the Fraser Institute is.

Soon it will just be the Calgary Herald left, breathlessly repeating the Fraser Institute's nonsense as if it had any credibility or usefulness.

Well the Calgary Herald is the staggering drooling joke of Canadian print journalism, which considering the embarrassing fish-wrapper competition is very strong in this country is  really saying something. 

It only makes sense that they would be joined at the hip to the most embarrassingly stupid right wing propaganda operation with pretenses to serious political and economic criticism in Canada. Again, a title with a lot of competition but one the Fraser Institute stoops to conquer.

Calgary Sun: Even the NDP would be better than the PCs!

#abvote

"The dynasty deserves to fall. Regardless of whether Alberta swings left or right, the province will be in better hands."

Learning to Cope

It's been nine days since he was laid off, lets see how Ezra Levant is dealing with unemployment...

The Invisible Backhand of the Marketplace

The holy market has spoken: There is insufficient audience in Canada to sustain a far right TV network - unsurprising as there was insufficient audience even in Alberta to sustain the far right Alberta Report magazine.

If we follow the logic of the political and economic right the judgment of the market on these media outlets is a judgment on the literal value of what they were selling.

Call it the Invisible backhand across the face of Ezra Levant.

The Sun: The official media chain of the campaign to destroy Canada

When you think about it, the Sun newspaper chain and Sun TV network being owned by an avowed separatist with the open and outspoken goal of destroying Canada is perhaps not that surprising; The Sun chain has always promoted discord, division, scapegoating and extreme ideology.  They have called for the abolition of things that bring us together as a country like the CBC, the Postal Service and the Canadian tradition of looking out for each other with a robust safety net, public healthcare and support for the weakest among us.  They have attacked workers and First Nations and immigrants and those demonstrating in the streets for a more responsive government.  They have imported a divisive and poisonous strain of political media from the US and the UK and appeared oblivious to the damage they inflict.

The owner of the Sun chain wants to break up Canada.  Is it perhaps time to wonder if he's been working towards that goal for YEARS?

Losing their religion

When even The Calgary Herald agrees that legislation has gone too far in attacking unions and free speech it means we are halfway to Orwell's 1984.

"The passing of Bills 45 and 46 on Wednesday night mark a dark chapter in Alberta history.

...

The contract the government wants to impose is zero per cent for the first two years and then one per cent in each of the next two years. The union and province reached an impasse and the union decided to wait for binding arbitration, where it believed its chances would be better. That right and historic arrangement has been shredded.
Even more disturbing however, is Bill 45. Under this bill, public sector workers, union leaders and even members of the general public can be fined thousands of dollars for just musing about or encouraging a strike. If this sounds Orwellian, it’s because it is.
The fundamental right to freedom of expression is being violated here and should concern all citizens who value our rights and freedoms.
This legislation will also impose $250,000 fines per day for any illegal strike and a $1-million fine per day that would go into a liability fund. Fines for illegal strikes are not unusual, though these ones are onerous.
Needless to say, making it illegal to just talk about striking is the kind of law one might expect in some banana republic or other oppressive totalitarian state.

...

That Premier Redford actually has the gall to claim that among unionized workers “there’s an appreciation for what we’re trying to do,” is laughable.
Nobody believes that and no one can believe that a so-called human rights lawyer would allow such an abomination to the most fundamental right of any free and democratic society — the right to speak and say things that the state might not agree with."

 And we must never forget that the other motive besides sticking it to public workers, is to distract Albertans from the scandal over covering up the deaths of scores of vulnerable, mostly aboriginal children in provincial foster care.  This government is so cartoonishly evil they should be twirling their moustaches as they tie children and workers to train rails!

Kelly McParland resurrects a classic racist smear divorced from history and reality

"If the U.S. does go ahead with plans to intervene, it will be doing so despite overwhelming public weariness across the western world with problems in the Middle East and Arab countries, with limited support from other western governments, and with no real appetite from Americans themselves. The experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan, the ongoing crisis in Egypt, the apparent lack of any progress in a region addicted to violence, have all been effective in diluting the West’s innate sympathy for the people of the region.  How often can you try to help people who don’t seem to want it and respond largely with anger and even more violence?"

Ahistorical, racist nonsense that deliberately ignores how often the West has intentionally stamped out any stirrings of real democracy in the region.

$90,000

It appears to be the magic right wing scandal number right now.  It's the amount Stepen Harper's chief of staff surreptitiously paid to a sitting Senator in order to stonewall an embarrassing audit.

And now its the amount the Alberta Wildrose Party has been charged by the CRTC for unsolicited and deceptive robo-calls during the the last provincial election.  Good luck finding out about it from Alberta's right wing cheer-leaders pretending to be unbiased media. Only Global Media tersely reports the story but declines to report the nature of the calls.

I received one of the calls personally and immediately recognized it as a Wildrose push-poll.

There were lots of questions like "If you knew that PC leader Allison Redford supported the Liberal daycare plan of Paul Martin and opposed Stephen Harper's parental credit alternative and hired a campaign manager who didn't pay his debts would you be more or less likely to support her?"

The call didn't identify itself as being from the Wildrose Party, didn't identify itself as campaign material, in fact deliberately presented itself as a poll with the implication of impartial information gathering and was a deliberate, sleazy attempt to damage Allison Redford by implying, horrors, that she was a squishy liberal.

Global's story twists itself into knots to avoid mentioning any of this.

$90,000.  A number that now represents the venality, arrogance and media granted impunity of Canada's political right.

"Public Sector unions are a blight on society"

 ...says convicted felon and well known douchebag.

Whining Corporate Welfare Bums

Quebecor, the owners of Sun News also own Videotron, a cable company serving almost two million subscribers in Quebec and Ontario.  They are before the CRTC right now demanding that Canadians subsidize their Sun News operation by being forced to have it added to all cable packages with an accompanying increase in cable bills.  They claim this is necessary because they aren't seen in enough households and they need this forced government subsidy to survive.

When asked why they don't automatically add Sun News to their own Videotron cable network with prominent channel placement as they have every right to do and are NOT doing now they had no answer.

Why should the Canadian people be forced to provide corporate welfare to a private TV channel that their own owner won't support and promote?

Songs for Justin

Two songs dedicated to the Liberal Party, once again picking dreamy school girl crush as their leadership criteria.

Some offense.

The Green Party is a Con-job

In Europe the various national Green Party's are real and valid progressive alternatives with a history of positive contribution to promoting progressive values and ideals.

In Canada the Green Party is a false flag operation.  A deliberate right wing stalking horse designed and promoted with the explicit goal of splintering the progressive vote.

When David Suzuki, quite reasonably, refused to appear at a venue with a Sun News 'reporter' in attendance after the contemptible attacks they regularly make upon him, Elizabeth May sided with Fox News North and gave their attending propagandist a big friendly hug.  The Sun News quisling then gushed about how much she 'respects' May.

So think about that.  Doctor Suzuki doesn't want to pander to a propaganda operation by treating them as if they were really journalists that is deliberately and repeatedly attacking him in the crudest and most contemptible terms precisely because he is such a credible opponent to the Conservative Party's slash and burn approach to the environment .  Elizabeth May gives Fox News North a big hug and the Sun News pod person takes pains to say how much she 'respects' her.

At this point anyone still supporting the Canadian Green Party is either a dupe or in on the con.

Corporate Atrocity Enablers

When Iran wants to spy on its citizens international Telecommunications firm MTN helps them do it.  When Syria is about to roll tanks into a neighbourhood and blast it into rubble MTN helpfully shuts off their phone and Internet service first.

Tell MTN what you think of international corporate citizens helping dictatorships spy on and murder their citizens.

Nancy Grace: Disgusting Evil Monster

Irresponsible self righteous bully drives another troubled woman to suicide:

A tragic accident, a loving mother with a drinking problem accidentally smothers her newborn while sleeping with it.  Police believe it was unintentional, a tragic accident, but the grieving mother faces manslaughter charges leaving the courts to decide the matter. 

In rides Nancy Grace to dub her 'Vodka Mommy' and DEMAND murder charges.  After watching herself be pilloried on national television followed by a campaign of harassment by the despicable Ms Grace's lynch mob fans, the grieving mother kills herself by self immolation.

This brings the repugnant Ms Grace's death toll from her harassment to two.  Why does CNN still give her a platform for her despicable bullying?

Damn Peasants!

The Globe and Mail sniffs in outraged offense at the peons daring to inconvenience or insult their betters.

Consider contacting the Globe and Mail and expressing how you feel about this display of patrician disdain.  Try to avoid any tempting four letter words.

Hat tip to Dawg

Taking on a Revolting Bully

A billionaire Mormon backer of Mitt Romney with an anti-gay axe to grind and a habit of using his vast wealth to harass, intimidate and silence critics gets openly challenged by Glenn Greenwald to put up or shut up:

Frank VanderSloot is an Idaho billionaire and the CEO of Melaleuca, Inc., a controversial billion-dollar-a-year company which peddles dietary supplements and cleaning products; back in 2004, Forbes, echoing complaints to government agencies, described the company as “a pyramid selling organization, built along the lines of Herbalife and Amway.” VanderSloot has long used his wealth to advance numerous right-wing political causes. Currently, he is the national finance co-chair of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, and his company has become one of the largest donors ($1 million) to the ostensibly “independent” pro-Romney SuperPAC, Restore Our Future. Melaleuca’s get-rich pitches have in the past caused Michigan regulators to take action, resulting in the company’s entering into a voluntary agreement to “not engage in the marketing and promotion of an illegal pyramid”‘; it entered into a separate voluntary agreement with the Idaho attorney general’s office, which found that “certain independent marketing executives of Melaleuca” had violated Idaho law; and the Food and Drug Administration previously accused Melaleuca of deceiving consumers about some of its supplements.

But it is VanderSloot’s chronic bullying threats to bring patently frivolous lawsuits against his political critics — magazines, journalists, and bloggers — that makes him particularly pernicious and worthy of more attention. In the last month alone, VanderSloot, using threats of expensive defamation actions, has successfully forced Forbes, Mother Jones and at least one local gay blogger in Idaho to remove articles that critically focused on his political and business practices. He has been using this abusive tactic in Idaho for years: suppressing legitimate political speech by threatening or even commencing lawsuits against even the most obscure critics (he has even sued local bloggers for “copyright infringement” after they published a threatening letter sent by his lawyers). This tactic almost always succeeds in silencing its targets, because even journalists and their employers who have done nothing wrong are afraid of the potentially ruinous costs they will incur when sued by a litigious billionaire.

Given Vandersloot's MO, Greenwald and Salon have to be expecting to be in the sights of the billionaire's legal arsenal for this blistering broadside.  It's an open challenge and a slap to provoke a SLAPP.  Repost this widely folks.

Sun Media's Jihad against the CBC so blatant even a Conservative Minister can see it

Initially, Heritage Minister James Moore said he would like to see more warning on the website regarding the show's content while stressing that Sun is "in the business of going after the CBC."

Wow.  Somebody went off message.

Afraid to call a Liar a Liar

The Montreal Gazette headline is 'NDP accuses Tony Clement of doctoring Hansard'. 

Wow, thinks the reader, that's a pretty serious allegation, accusing someone of deliberately distorting the public record of Parliament is a big deal.  But look, the headline just says he's just accused of it, so if its just a case of he said, they said... what's that?

He unambiguously did it?  The Gazette article itself confirms he did in fact request that two times he answered in the affirmative to a direct question and said 'Sure' when asked if he would release records about G-8 spending be removed leaving a blank space in the record?

So then, wouldn't a more accurate headline actually be 'Tony Clement doctored Hansard'?

In the US, Willard 'Mitt' Romney lies about his own name and also releases a campaign commercial featuring Obama quoting a Republican - without including the few words before the quote saying that it was a quote.  That's unambiguously lying.  'Mitt' Romney is a liar.  But don't bother looking for articles in the American mainstream media printing the simple fact that 'Mitt' Romney is a lying liar who tells lies.

Because, as an exasperated Washington reporter once said, the mainstream media now "believe that being "balanced" means giving the same weight to a lie as you give to the truth"

And if that's the case, what possible use are they?