Julian Fantino, in action

Let's review:

Currently, as the Conservative candidate in Vaughan, he refuses to attend an all candidates' meeting. He won't respond to questions about his role in the wiretapping of lawyer Peter Maloney and whether that extended to former police services board chair Susan Eng.

The essential Alex Himelfarb

Is it possible, from a legislative point of view, to declare this man an essential resource, indispensible to the national interest? In a new post on our dysfunctional democratic institutions, he writes:

The new populism we see developing to the South is profoundly undemocratic. Giving up on the possibility of collective progress leads not to democracy making but to institution busting, not to open knowledge sharing and public education, essential to democracy, but to the denigration of knowledge and expertise and surrender to slogans and spin, and, despite the rhetoric, not to greater personal freedom, except for the already rich and powerful.

He's probably a lot kinder to Bob Rae than I'd be, but that's because he's a gentleman.

Big props to pogge for #onpoli

Cross-posted from over here ...

A polite and proper acknowledgement to pogge for setting up this lovely sitting room. For weeks now, I've been somewhat disturbed by the, um, tone of some of the posts in the blogosphere. I won't mention any names, of course, but some folks are descending to, well, gutter language.  

What Stageleft said

So Vern White's reaching out to the community in response to the Stacy Bonds scandal, wanting everyone to know that the Ottawa police take this sort of thing very seriously.

Is the Ottawa Citizen undermining the authority of the court?

Note the wording of the lead sentence here:

Ontario's Special Investigations Unit is probing what a judge has called the unlawful 2008 arrest and strip search of a 27-year-old woman by Ottawa police officers.

Ottawa Crown Attorney's Office? This is your elbow. This is your ass.

Would you like me to go through that again? It's a fairly important distinction, and one you don't seem to have grasped just yet.

Writing in the Ottawa Citizen, law professor David Tanovich asks the obvious question regarding the Crown's decision to prosecute Stacy Bonds: what the fuck were they thinking? On what planet would the public interest have been served by seeking a conviction?

What is the Crown in Ottawa waiting for?

Hello? Paging the Ottawa Crown Attorney's office. That's 613-239-1200.

A court of law has ruled that the Ottawa cops' treatment of Stacy Bonds was a travesty, and cited their "appalling behaviours." That's not a rumour or a bit of hearsay or an incomplete or biased newspaper account. It's a finding of fact by a judge.