http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl? http://www.eblah.com en http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1368703415/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1368703415/#num1 Mike Duffy Claimed Expenses While Campaigning In 2011 Election

Conservative Sen. Mike Duffy submitted expense claims while Parliament was dissolved during the last federal election, reporting he was on Senate business on days he appeared to be campaigning for the party. (CP File Photos)

Huffington Post Canada


OTTAWA - Conservative Sen. Mike Duffy submitted expense claims while Parliament was dissolved during the last federal election, reporting he was on Senate business on days he appeared to be campaigning for the party.

The full extent of Duffy's Senate expenses during the writ period remains a mystery — the Conservative government is refusing to reveal the full breakdown of the senator's claims and his repayment of $90,172.24.

But independent auditors at the firm Deloitte listed Duffy as being in Ottawa on Senate business and claiming a daily expense for seven days in April 2011, a month that was dominated by campaigning for the May 2 vote.

He was also listed as being on Senate business at an "other location" on another six days. Using cellphone records, Deloitte managed to catch one inappropriate "other location" claim from 2012 while Duffy was in Florida.

But the auditors said they remained in the dark about whether taxpayers paid his expenses on many other days, since Duffy failed to fully disclose his activities and records.

Social media and newspaper reports offer a glimpse of how Duffy's busy campaign schedule overlapped with the Senate business he reported to auditors:

— On April 5, Duffy spoke to the Kootenay-Columbia Conservative association in British Columbia. His travel claims indicated he was on Senate business.
     
     

— On April 8, candidate Sandy Lee tweeted that she was meeting Duffy in Norman Wells, N.W.T. Lee's campaign paid Duffy $209.01 in expenses. His travel claims indicated he was on Senate business.

— On April 21, Duffy was reportedly campaigning with candidate Scott Armstrong in Nova Scotia. Armstrong's campaign paid Duffy $409.91 in expenses.

— On April 28, Duffy appeared to have a busy day in the Toronto area, campaigning with candidates Maureen Harquail, Wladyslaw Lizon and Gin Siow. Lizon's campaign paid Duffy $169.45, as did Siow. His travel claims indicated he was on Senate business.

— On April 29, former cabinet minister Lawrence Cannon tweeted a picture of Duffy at an event outside of Ottawa that same day. The Deloitte audit listed Duffy as being in Ottawa on Senate business and claiming a per diem.

If Duffy collected daily Senate expenses while on the Conservative campaign trail, taxpayer may have paid twice: Conservative candidates who paid for Duffy's hotel stays would have received federal rebate money for those expenses.

Duffy's campaign events did not end there. On at least five other occasions documented in media reports, Duffy campaigned with Conservative candidates. He did not tell Deloitte about his campaign calendar, forcing Deloitte to list his activities as "undocumented."

Meanwhile, the public Senate attendance register does not cover April or May 2011, the period that Parliament was dissolved.

"We are not on a leave of absence — Parliament was dissolved — we are still senators. However, all party work we are doing is paid for by the party," Duffy told Postmedia News during the campaign.

"MPs continue to be paid. So do we."

Duffy did not respond to a phone call or an email message requesting comment.

On Wednesday, the prime minister's office revealed that Stephen Harper's chief of staff Nigel Wright had given Duffy the $90,000 he needed for housing expense repayment as a gift.

But Duffy appeared to contradict that, according to a CTV News report Wednesday night. The network said it received an email from Duffy in which he claimed he repaid his expense claims with a loan from the Royal Bank and that "Nigel played no role.”

Once the repayment was made, Deloitte said Duffy ended his participation in the audit, stopping short of providing financial records, credit card statements and information about his calendar. He also did not meet with the auditors.

"Based on the information provided in the travel claims, it is not clear from the claims where Sen. Duffy was located on days he claimed per diem amounts," Deloitte wrote.

Sen. Mac Harb, formerly a Liberal who is now independent and contesting a Senate demand he repay $51,482 in housing-related expenses, is also listed as having been in Ottawa on Senate business on four days during the federal election period, but reported no Senate business outside of Ottawa.

Sen. Patrick Brazeau, also now independent after being kicked out of the Conservative caucus, only listed one day of Senate business in Ottawa during the writ period. He is also fighting a demand for repayment of $48,744 in housing expenses.

Deloitte also highlighted six expense claims when Harb said he was in Ottawa on "Senate business" without being able to prove what he was doing, and two for Brazeau. In both cases, Harb and Brazeau provided Deloitte with more documents than Duffy, and met with the auditors in person.


http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/05/16/mike-duffy-expenses_n_3284457.html


.]]> Thu, 16 May 2013 04:23:35 SkyLine http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1368601971/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1368601971/#num1 The odor of deception
Is the Dam of Lies
About to Burst?

  
By Alan Caruba

      May 13, 2013

Usually there are signs a dam is about to burst. Tiny cracks show up, the structure makes strange noises, and then, whoosh! That’s what we are witnessing as the President, the former Secretary of State, and the Attorney General struggle to keep the bulwark of lies and half-truths they have built intact. It is showing signs of collapse.

Liberals say absurd things all the time—mostly because they either don’t know the facts or because they prefer to ignore or obfuscate them. The current example is the shout-it-from-the-rooftops claim that Republicans are “politicizing” the events in Benghazi that left a U.S. ambassador and three security personnel dead.

In the wake of the House hearings on May 8th, the most elemental politics is at work within the White House and that is the decision to abandon Hillary Clinton. The decision to appoint her Secretary of State was political and, since the President sets foreign policy, it kept her wing of the party in the tent while affording the White House the opportunity to keep her conveniently on the road and largely out of the spotlight.

Name a single treaty or significant foreign policy achievement of Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State. Zero. Zip. Nada. Nienta.

Consider the meltdown of influence the United States has had in the Middle East where the single act of a Tunisian peddler who committed suicide as a response to the harassment of the police set off a revolution that drove its dictator from office and then spread rapidly to Libya where Gaddafi was killed and to Egypt where its dictator (and ally of the U.S.) was driven from office with the President’s blessing. And, for two years, the U.S. has stood on the sidelines and watched as the Syrian dictator has slaughtered 70,000 Syrians, driving some 2.5 million to flee to Turkey and Jordan.

It has taken eight months since the September 11, 2012 attack on the Benghazi consulate and a House committee hearing to learn the truth as to why repeated requests for increased security assets were denied in a nation that is still essentially a war zone between the north and the south. We still do not know who told available forces to stand down. The President and his regime call this “politicizing.”

Beyond Benghazi, every decision the President makes or chooses not to make has political implications. The choice to go to bed the night of the attack and then fly to a fundraiser the following day was political. As Commander-in-Chief he had responsibility to issue the orders to protect his diplomats—our diplomats—but he is also the Great Delegator and, as the noose tightens around Hillary, she is very expendable.

It’s a political decision to exploit the murders in a Connecticut elementary school to attack the Second Amendment and gun ownership. The response of ordinary people was to go out and buy a gun. Indeed, fear of the White House’s intentions has made the President the greatest gun salesman in the nation.

Even in the Obama Justice Department there is the odor of deception that still reeks from the bungled gun-running program called “Fast and Furious” which allowed guns purchased In the U.S. to be transferred to various Mexican drug cartels. The result, in one case, was a dead U.S. Border Patrol officer, an ICE agent, and an unknown number of Mexican cartel victims. It took a presidential executive order to throw a blanket of silence over the role of the Justice Department in this lethal debacle. That’s political.

Now we learn that the Justice Department obtained Associated Press phone records in a probe to discover the source of a leaked story. AP officials called it a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how a news organization gathers news. The ever-reliable, politically-correct, liberally oriented AP has become a crack in the dam.

The revelation that the Internal Revenue Service “targeted” the Tea Party, patriotic, and pro-Israel groups for special attention regarding their tax status now adds to a growing sense of a regime without any internal limits on its exercise of power.

The result is a period in which the barely concealed scorn of the President, his wife, and those around him in appointed and elected office has half the population outraged while the other half is content to live parasitically, not paying taxes, and receiving an amazing array of benefits which a bankrupt nation cannot afford.

When enough people—citizens, voters, taxpayers—think they are being lied to and betrayed by those in high office, the dam of lies will begin to show signs of bursting under the pressure of their pent up anger.

© Alan Caruba, 2013


http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/55200


.]]> Wed, 15 May 2013 00:12:51 newsman http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1368513091/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1368513091/#num1 What do you know about Agenda 21?

Many of these programs have already been implemented within our communities, towns, cities, provinces and nations around the world.

This is a Shocker! View video HERE


.]]> Mon, 13 May 2013 23:31:31 newsman http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1368466623/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1368466623/#num1
Neither BC Liberals nor BC NDP have lifted up expectations. Supporting BC Liberals pretty much gives Christy Clark and Co. a chance to be arrogant for four more years, combating with the British Columbians yet again on some controversial issues. Taking BC NDP yet equals to putting the economy and the provincial current account at stake.

BC Conservative and Green Party are never in radar, at least at this stage. So no thanks.

Of course, my vote, which can well be a void one, does not influence the outcome.

Most BC MPs candidates are even very much expected  -- feels automatically anyway -- that the British Columbians who are eligible to vote and are going to vote just rountinely mark the candidate ( = vote the leader as the Premier) and put the voting paper into the box, and off they go home. They all care less those who do not vote.

But I have been thinking that a large enough portion of "void" votes during this election papers would signal to the parties -- BC Liberals & BC NDP -- that they need to face the reality:  

1.We, the British Columbians, are very unhappy with all of them. They have been disasterous on issues such as the BC Translink and the HST.

2.We know their platform are lies. The platform is merely a tactic to tempt us to vote for either one of them. They need to stop thinking that, plus

3. They should stop the mentality of "they are 'bigger' than ours" once getting elected; we have the rights to call their heads when they do something that is detrimental to the British Columbia and each of us.

Yet as of now, I feel doubts that many British Columbians would void their votes, as they vote the candidate/the party they support, or just blindly vote the candidate they know, or just simply do not go to vote.

Oh right, you have catched me. I am testing any of you would consider writing a gigantic "void" on your voting paper.]]> Mon, 13 May 2013 10:37:03 Moose http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1368458169/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1368458169/#num1 B.C.: Bye-bye Canada? Don’t be surprised if that’s the case should Adrian Dix win tomorrows election



By Ezra Levant

    May 11, 2013

If Adrian Dix and the NDP win the British Columbia election tomorrow, they will become a larger problem for Canadian national unity than Quebec.

Adrian Dix doesn’t want to separate B.C. from Canada. He wants Canada to separate from B.C. His central campaign promise is an economic blockade of the rest of us.

Dix has announced he no longer wants B.C. to be the gateway to the Pacific, a central identity of British Columbia for more than a century, and a key role for B.C. within Canada.

It seems trite to say it, but the Pacific is a big reason why B.C. is part of Canada at all, instead of another U.S. state connecting Washington to Alaska.

There were many reasons to build a railway across the country 130 years ago, but connecting Canada to the sea, and B.C. to the rest of us, was a main one.

It’s why the middle name of the CPR is “Pacific.” It was economic and military. But it was also about our grand national identity. It’s even Canada’s motto: “From sea to sea.”

Well, not if Dix has his way.

The rest of Canada needs to sell things to the booming economies of Asia, which is why the Port of Vancouver is the busiest in the country. Much of that is sent by train.

But a Canadian company called Enbridge wants to build an oil pipeline from Alberta to the northern B.C. town of Kitimat, where another tanker port has been operating for years.

And a U.S. company called Kinder Morgan wants to expand its existing pipeline from Alberta to Vancouver, which has been operating since before Dix was born.

Between them, these two proposals — the new pipeline and expanding the old one — are $10 billion in infrastructure projects, where most of the jobs would accrue to B.C.

That’s just the construction bonanza; the oil that would travel within them would be worth more than $40 billion a year to Canada’s economy.

For comparison, the total value of all Canadian auto exports last year — every Ford, Chrysler, GM, Honda and Toyota made here and sold to the U.S. — was just $52 billion.

But Dix has opposed both pipelines before they’ve even been reviewed by regulators.

He’s even said he opposes allowing the Port of Vancouver — which is constitutionally a federal project — to handle more oil, though as the Port Authority itself points out, it’s been shipping bulk oil for more than 50 years and has “never had a navigational issue with an oil tanker.”

Earlier this year, Statistics Canada announced that little Saskatchewan, with barely a million people, now exports more than mighty B.C., with four times that many people.

B.C. has simply stopped mining, logging, fishing and drilling for oil, and now Dix says he’s going to “review” natural gas fracking, the one booming industry remaining in B.C.

Is he serious?

Ask his wife. She publicly boasts that she has no car or cellphone, and gives public poetry readings around Vancouver, lamenting the “sheep” who drive and praising public transit.

That post-industrial lifestyle might work for a small clique of university professors and eco-activists, but you can’t run a province that way. Somebody’s got to earn the money that the NDP plans to tax.

Trouble is, Dix doesn’t just want B.C. to de-industrialize.

He wants the rest of us to do so, too.

And he’s going to blockade the rest of us, Constitution be damned.


http://www.torontosun.com/2013.....-next-weeks-election



.]]> Mon, 13 May 2013 08:16:09 newsman