Adscam: Liberals Losing Ground -- And MPs

New polling in the wake of the explosive testimony by Jean Brault shows that the Liberal Party in Canada may have done what some thought impossible -- given new hope to the Tories. An Ipsos poll for G&M/CTV shows the Liberal lead shrinking to four points nationwide, a drop of seven points in less than eight weeks:

The Ipsos-Reid poll, conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV, found 34 per cent of respondents across Canada would vote for Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberals, compared to 30 per cent for the Tories. That's a dramatic shrink in the Liberal lead, from an 11-percentage point gap in February to only four points this week.

The Liberals fell further behind the Bloc Québécois in Quebec, and the Conservatives almost wiped out the governing party's big lead in Ontario, the key swing region where shifts in support can cause changes in government.

The Ipsos-Reid poll interviews began Tuesday, as rumours of explosive testimony under publication ban at the Gomery Commission were reported in the media and on the internet. A quarter of the interviews were conducted Thursday night, after the ban was lifted and the details of advertising executive Jean Brault's damning testimony hit television airwaves.

In Ontario, where government control hinges, the drop has been even more dramatic. The Liberals held a commanding fifteen-point lead in February, but have now dropped to a four-point lead there as well, which barely puts it out of the margin of error for the poll (3.1%). In the first blush of Brault's testimony, Canadians appear to be questioning their loyalty to a political party that all accounts thus far shows its abuse of government funds to further its own electoral successes. Nor will the upcoming testimony of Paul Coffin or Chuck Guité likely put Canadians into a forgiving mood. The likelihood of a further drop in polling looks substantial.

Will this result in a new election? Paul Martin's government called on Stephen Harper to forswear any no-confidence vote until after the Gomery Inquiry releases its report, but that should hardly make any difference. No one thinks that the Conservatives would halt the inquiry, so an election should have little effect on the end result. Besides, the Conservatives will want more of the testimony out in the public domain before calling an election in order to ensure that the electorate gets thoroughly enraged before voting.

At least one Liberal MP doesn't plan on waiting for the election, however. Alberta MP David Kilgour announced that he may defect to the Conservative Party out of "disgust":

David Kilgour, who represents the Edmonton-Beaumont riding, told the Calgary Sun on Friday that he is already being courted by the Conservatives to switch sides. He said he hasn't made a decision yet, but will decide soon.

“The Liberal party is seen as looking on the public trust as a vulture looks on a dying calf. Here we are, a G7 country, acting like a northern banana republic. What country is seen as more politically corrupt than us at the moment?” Kilgour said, speaking from Ottawa. ...

Kilgour, who was once a Tory but was bounced from the party in 1990 for opposing the GST, won his seat for the Liberals in the last federal election by a slim 134 votes.

He speculated that if he runs again as a Liberal, he'll be toast.

“If you draw up a thing to make people want to vomit, this is it,” Kilgour said about the details emerging from the sponsorship inquiry. “I have no desire for people to throw me out on my ear.”

If the news gets bad enough out of the Gomery Inquiry, perhaps a new election won't be necessary. Enough MPs might decide to switch parties to avoid the inevitable voter backlash to change governments. If the upcoming testimony provides as many new and scandalous revelations as Brault did, that unlikely scenario might soon appear more and more plausible.

Reaching Parity With The Exempt Media (Updated)

Jack Shafer pens an interesting look at the similarities and differences between blogs and the Exempt Media, and postulates that parity may be coming between the two. In his opinion, the Schiavo memo shows that both sides can get stories equally incorrect, and that both sides should have the latitude to do so -- as long as corrections are published in a quick manner:

Bloggers demonstrated their skill at botching a story last month when a swarm of them accused the Washington Post and ABC News of journalistic malpractice. The two news organizations had reported on the existence of a GOP talking-points memo about Terri Schiavo. The bloggers asserted it was a Ratherian fake. As Eric Boehlert details in Salon, the nay-saying blogs consumed terabytes of bandwidth denouncing the Post and ABC. Powerline, Michelle Malkin, the American Spectator's Prowler, PoliPundit, and Accuracy in Media led the charge.

After the Post and others proved the legitimacy of the document on April 7, bloggers proved themselves the equals of their mainstream media colleagues once more by ignoring or glossing over their goof. Boehlert writes, "scanning the blogs involved in the memo story, readers found few corrections or references to lessons learned."

Which, Shafer says, shows that bloggers have learned lessons from the Exempt Media that would have best been left unlearned. Shafer, long a fan of blogs, still supports the idea that bloggers should receive the same kind of treatment that so-called professional journalists receive. He insists that the quality of opinion journalism in the blogosphere outstrips that of the Exempt Media, and disputes the notion that no real reporting goes on in the blogosphere:

Professional journalists have it all over bloggers when it comes to reporting. The first generation of bloggers tends to resist taking off their PJs and donning hip-waders to report the news from the swamp. Reporting is a learned skill and experience counts for something. Also, professional news organizations pay for airplane tickets, hotel accommodations, car rentals, libel insurance, editing, and other resources to make reporting happen. How many unpaid bloggers will cover a war from the shrapneled front? A handful. Maybe.

Yet the pros don't have a complete lock on reporting. Energetic bloggers, such as activist Michael Petrelis, have learned to work the FOIA machinery and the FEC database as well as the best professionals. Captain Ed at Captain's Quarters kicked up an international incident just this week by publishing banned-in-Canada material about the Canadian Liberal Party. Russ Kick of the Memory Hole does heroic work in retrieving banned information and uncovering government secrets. If they wanted to, bloggers could poach the local news beat away from the professional media by covering city council and school board activity that goes undocumented by the mainstream. Greensboro 101, in Greensboro, N.C., has those sorts of ambitions. Likewise, Mark Potts' "hyperlocal" backfence.com hopes to take "reporting" down to the pixel level of neighborhood T-ball games, PTA meetings, and development issues.

Shafer's correct, of course, that media outlets allow for greater financial resources and better access to information -- on a one-to-one comparison. The LA Times will always have more resources than CQ. But that, I think, misses the hive characteristics of the blogosphere. In many cases -- for instance, Eason Jordan -- CQ took the lead in reporting facts dug up by a number of bloggers, all of whom got credit and links back for their information but which aggregated at CQ. In that kind of structure, I acted as an editor with a field staff bring many disparate pieces of information. Not only did I choose what information should and should not get published (on CQ, anyway), but then I acted as a reporter in redrafting the narrative to fit all of the information.

In short, I assumed the natural editorial functions of a newspaper staff, along with the roles of publisher and journalist.

The blogosphere works in a hive format, one of the reasons that the term swarm resonates so well. The strength that we have, as opposed to the Exempt Media, is that hundreds of thousands -- perhaps millions -- of readers and other bloggers have little pieces of information that seem, in isolation, to have little value. Once they start reading about a breaking story, however, those little pieces start to add up, and when a major story breaks through that can pull those threads together into a coherent narrative, the effect can be devastating. I would say that the Exempt Media may have its paid staff, but its long history of clubby disdain for its own consumers as partners keeps it from really taking advantage of these kinds of networks.

In the end, I think the Exempt Media will embrace the blogosphere as a way to tap into that hive structure and get better sourcing and depth to their reporting. Before that happens, the powers that be at the top need to read more of Jack Shafer and start understanding his point of view, because as long as they see us as the enemy, they will continue to alienate their best consumers and a ready-made resource for reaching the truth.

UPDATE: I should make clear that I disagree with Shafer's assertion that Power Line and Michelle Malkin got the Schiavo memo story incorrect. First off, Michelle never drew any conclusions from the memo story except that the initial reporting from ABC and the Washington Post left much to be desired, which is still the case. Both media outlets pushed the memo as having come from GOP party "leaders" and treated it as a smoking gun for hypocrisy, neither of which held up when the true story came out. Power Line postulated that the memo could have come from Democratic staffers as a dirty trick -- but as only one of a number of possible explanations, and clearly stated that as speculation. All of us were surprised that a Republican staffer for a freshman Senator would be stupid enough to create something this illiterate and foolish memo ... but it turned out it was.

It's too easy to ignore the credible and justified criticism of Mike Allen and ABC that Malkin, Power Line, and others provided as a winner-take-all, zero-sum win or loss. If the more speculative possiblilities did not pan out, it is without a doubt that the characterization of this memo by ABC and the Post didn't either. Quite frankly, if Power Line hadn't stepped up and held ABC and the Post's feet to the fire, we'd still be hearing that this memo came from Frist and the other GOP leaders in the Senate.

Starving The Inconvenient, Part II

As predicted, after Terri Schiavo's court-ordered death by dehydration, the process has repeated itself in LaGrange, Georgia. Only in this case, not only is Ora Mae Magouirk not terminal, the relative demanding her death isn't the next of kin -- but she found a judge to order the withdrawal of food and water in defiance of Magouirk's living will:

As WND reported, Magouirk was neither terminally ill, comatose, nor in a persistent vegetative state, when Hospice-LaGrange, in LaGrange, Ga., accepted her as a patient upon the request of her granddaughter, Elizabeth ("Beth") Gaddy, 36, of Hoganville, Ga. Also upon Gaddy's request, the Hospice began withholding food and water from the patient.

When she learned of this, Magouirk's sister Lonnie Ruth Mullinax, 74, of Birmingham, and her brother, A.B. McLeod, 64, of Anniston, Ala., protested and attempted to have their sister removed from the hospice and transported to UAB Medical Center for treatment. However, Gaddy and her brother, Michael Shane Magouirk, obtained an emergency injunction from Troup County Probate Judge Douglas Boyd to prevent the planned air transport.

In her petition Gaddy argued that "irreparable harm" would occur to Magouirk if she were removed from Hospice.

Ken Mullinax hoped that publicity about the case would result in a feeding tube being inserted so she could begin receiving nourishment, but he told WorldNetDaily this has not happened.

WorldNetDaily has not been able to verify if food is still being denied, but if it is it would be in contradiction of the court’s ruling.

This outcome precisely mirrors the prediction that critics of Florida's actions in the Schiavo case argued. The courts have gone from an presumption of life in absence of compelling evidence of a patient's wishes to the contrary to a presumption of death in the Schiavo case, and in Magouirk's case, a presumption of death despite the patient's expressed wishes. According to WND's initial report on April 7th, Magouirk gave specific instructions about the withdrawal of food and water:

In her living will, Magouirk stated that fluids and nourishment were to be withheld only if she were either comatose or "vegetative," and she is neither. Nor is she terminally ill, which is generally a requirement for admission to a hospice. ...

The dehydration is being done in defiance of Magouirk's specific wishes, which she set down in a "living will," and without agreement of her closest living next-of-kin, two siblings and a nephew: A. Byron McLeod, 64, of Anniston, Ga.; Ruth Mullinax, 74, of Birmingham, Ala.; and Ruth Mullinax's son, Ken Mullinax.

None of this moved probate Judge Donald Boyd, who stepped into the case as Magouirk's granddaughter was found to have misrepresented herself as holding a medical power of attorney in order to get Magouirk admitted to the hospice. Beth Gaddy held a financial power of attorney, but had no authority to contradict Magouirk's living will -- and she certainly is not Magouirk's closest living relative. However, Boyd issued a temporary order giving Gaddy guardianship over her grandmother over the objections of her other kin, and that order prevents them from taking Magouirk to a hospital that could possibly treat and cure her aortic dissection (the same condition that killed John Ritter), perhaps even without surgery.

According to WND, no one is sure whether hydration and nutrition have been restored, as the family hs requested. Both had been initially withheld starting on March 28th, then reinstated later that week. Last weekend, Gaddy won the guardianship temporarily in Boyd's court and had both removed. As we have seen, it won't be long before Magouirk dies from dehydration unless her family can undo what Boyd and Gaddy did last week.

Why would the probate judge overrule Magouirk's living will and the objections of closer relatives in favor of a granddaughter who wants to kill Magouirk? It again demonstrates a preference and presumption of death for those people we find inconvenient. In the Schiavo case, we heard repeatedly that the big lesson was to draft a living will, but in this case -- if WND has its facts straight -- a living will does no good in the courtroom.

No, the lesson we should have taken from the Schiavo case is that our courts and our society has taken a utilitarian view of human life, one that measures value by the scale of the young and healthy. Beth Gaddy asked, "Who would want to live like this?" According to Ora Mae's own living will, she would -- and no enlightened society should presume to end Magouirk's life in defiance of that wish. Boyd's action in probate court -- an odd place to get this kind of judgment for a living person -- shows not so much a judicial bias towards utilitarianism, but a reflection of the utilitarianism that pervades Western societies as a whole. Euthanasia of the willing has led to euthanasia of the uncertain, and now in Magouirk's case, euthanasia of the completely unwilling.

When will we put an end to the presumption of death? We need to press our representatives to codify a presumption of life into our laws so that judges must err on the side of medical treatment, especially when it amounts to nothing more than food and water. To kill our citizens by denying them the basics of life for no other reason than we find them inconvenient is not progress; it's a return to the eugenics movements of the 1930s and a warped and twisted notion of the value of human life.

UPDATE: Blogs for Terri reports that Magouirk has been airlifted this afternoon to a hospital and that her hydration and nourishment has been restored. For those who question the reliability of WND -- which may be a reasonable reaction -- B4T has been corresponding with some of the principals in the case. As always, YMMV.

UPDATE II: Tom Maguire has some interesting questions about this case. Is the nephew a Democratic operative? And if he is, does it make any difference? Also, check out this report by an Atlanta news station. It appears to dispute some of the elements of the WND articles:

Judge Boyd called Mullinax's charges completely false and said all relatives agreed to let three doctors decide what was next for Magouirk. He said that everyone was happy with the compromise.

“They were hugging necks, and, as far as I knew, the family was fine,” the judge said. ...

Bloggers from the Schiavo case heated up the Internet and swamped the judge's phones and computer with what he said are wildly false charges.

“I've even been accused several times of murder and I've had, I would say, close to a hundred e-mails,” Boyd said.

The CEO of the West Georgia Health System told 11Alive News, "No patient at our hospice is denied food or water."

So Dafydd ab Hugh's skepticism in this case was warranted -- or at least, we don't have all the pieces of this story yet. However, if the woman wasn't terminal, we can at least point out that hospice would be an inappropriate venue for her treatment.

When more gets published, I'll be sure to link to it.

Adscam On NARN Today!

I'll take my tired and useless voice onto the Northern Alliance Radio Network show today to talk about Adscam and other topics of the day, starting at noon CDT. The show can be heard on AM 1280 The Patriot in the Twin Cities, but also streamed over the internet at this link. Feel free to call in and join the conversation at 651-289-4488!

Adscam Reaches Prime Minister's Office

Testimony continued in public at the Gomery Inquiry on Friday, and much of it devastated the Liberal Party and its former leader, Jean Chretien. Witnesses tied Adscam efforts directly to Chretien's staff, including his brother Gaby, for the first time since the publication ban was lifted earlier this week:

STAFFERS OF former PM Jean Chretien received secret payments to fund his victorious 1993 Shawinigan election campaign from a Montreal ad firm lobbying for federal contracts, the Gomery inquiry heard yesterday. Former Groupaction Marketing employee Alain Renaud said two years after the election, Chretien's brother Gabriel personally set up meetings for him with a senior PMO staffer and top Liberal officials in a bid to open the floodgates of federal contracts.

Renaud, who was hired by Groupaction founder Jean Brault in 1994 to bring in federal contracts, added to his former boss's explosive testimony about secret donations to key Liberals. ...

Renaud said Brault showed him a $30,000 cheque payable to Chretien's then chief of staff, Michel Fournier, during the 1993 federal election campaign.

"Were these cheques for the campaign of the Liberal Party or Mr. Chretien's campaign?" commission lawyer Bernard Roy asked.

"Mr. Chretien's campaign," Renaud replied.

Renaud tied the payments from Groupaction directly to the people around Chretien. He recounted $50,000 in payments between Jean Brault and Fournier -- Brault only admitted to $6,000 -- that went to Lib spokesman Daniel-Yves Durand in 1993. Renaud also testified that when business ran slow from the government, he went directly to former Quebec president Michel Beliveau, and that Beliveau would contact Chretien's chief of staff, Jean Pelletier, in order to rectify the situation. Renaud told the inquiry that he redirected more than a million dollars in sponsorship money back into the Liberal Party in return for all of this access and the advertising contracts Groupaction received from the Sponsorship Program.

Canadians may ask themselves where Chretien falls into all of this. The people he hired certainly appear to have their hands into the corruption up to the armpits. The closest that anyone has directly testified so far about Chretien's involvement is his brother, who appears to have been instrumental in making Sponsorship Program arrangements and clandestine payments. However, Renaud also testified that Brault showed him a $30,000 check made out to Fournier in 1993 but intended for Chretien:

Jean Brault, whose dramatic testimony at the sponsorship inquiry has rocked the country, donated $30,000 to ex-prime minister Jean Chretien's victorious 1993 campaign in the hopes of landing future federal contracts, the inquiry was told Friday.

Former Groupaction employee Alain Renaud testified that a year after the Liberals swept to power in 1993, Brault showed him a $30,000 cheque payable to Michel Fournier, who served as Chretien's chief of staff when he was Opposition leader. ...

"(Brault) said he invested a fair sum in the Liberal campaign and he would surely get federal government contracts,'' Renaud said under questioning from chief inquiry counsel Bernard Roy.

"Were these cheques for the campaign of the Liberal party or Mr. Chretien's campaign?" Roy asked.

Renaud replied: "Mr. Chretien's campaign."

Brault's alleged investment certainly paid off, if true. That $30K brought in $60 million in contracts. If that can be corroborated, it provides yet another strong link between the corruption and Chretien's inner circle -- and beyond that, the core of the Liberal Party.

Zero Hour

After having slept most of the day away, thanks to a flu or cold I haven't been able to shake for more than a week, I've missed most of the day's news and haven't blogged much as a result. I woke up in time for dinner and watched a movie with the First Mate, and now that she's ready to go to sleep ... I'm wide awake, of course.

Right now, I'm watching "Zero Hour" on the History Channel, a recreation of the last hour of American Airlines Flight 11 on 9/11. It's pretty gripping, and so I'm caught up in this show rather than blogging. History Channel will repeat the show in about three hours or so, and if you get the opportunity, I'd recommend taping it.

UPDATE: Maybe when people watch this show, they'll understand why Michelle Malkin writes about idiotic lapses such as these:

An anti-terrorism task force headed by the FBI has issued a special alert bulletin concerning a man who authorities said took flight lessons while in the United States illegally.

The man, Zayed Christopher Hajaig, has been located in the United Kingdom, said Steve Emmett, a special agent with the FBI in Atlanta. Hajaig has not been taken into custody, Emmett said, but the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has been alerted, and his name has been placed on a "no-fly" list.

The Atlanta Joint Terrorism Task Force -- a special anti-terrorism unit of local law enforcement and federal authorities -- issued the bulletin Thursday night. Hajaig took lessons at a flight school near Atlanta in Gwinnett County, Emmett said.

Someone from the school alerted authorities when Hajaig attempted to have his instructor upgrade his flight rating when he wasn't yet qualified, he said. Emmett also said Hajaig attempted to have the flight school accelerate his training schedule.

"All flight schools after 9/11 have been asked to increase their state of alertness," Emmett said. "They've been asked to report any suspicious behavior."

Can we start requiring some background checks for commercial flight training now?

Welcome To The Free Market

After a number of poor editorial decisions, including running North Korean propaganda as a front-page news article last month, the Los Angeles Times not only has lost subscribers but now a major advertiser has cancelled its account at the paper. General Motors announced today that it will no longer buy advertising in Los Angeles' only major broadsheet due to the editorial incompetence shown by the newspaper:

General Motors Corp. has pulled its advertising from the Los Angeles Times over what it called factual errors and misrepresentations in the newspaper, a spokesman for the automaker said.

GM did not say how much it spent on advertising in the Times, one of the largest U.S. newspapers, or how long the ban would continue.

"General Motors decided this week to cease advertising in the Los Angeles Times based on strongly voiced objections from our dealers in California about factual errors and misrepresentations in the Times' editorial coverage," said GM spokesman Brian Akre on Thursday.

The final straw appears to have been a column specifically regarding General Motors and its marketing strategy about its brand management. Dan Neil called for the GM board to get rid of Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO. Needless to say, that didn't make Wagoner a fan of the LAT, but it's doubtful that a single column -- by Dan Neil, of all people -- would cause GM to stop advertising in the only newspaper available throughout the entirety of the greater Los Angeles area. Instead, it seems as though Neil's column probably underscored the complaints that GM had received from its customers regarding the poor performance of the Los Angeles Times. (For a much better look at the track record of the LAT, make sure to visit Patterico's Pontifications.)

For those who are tempted to scold General Motors for a lack of support for a free press, let's remember that GM isn't censoring the LAT at all. They have no power to do so, in any real sense. Censorship comes from the government at the threat of arrest. What GM has done in this case is to make a rational decision that its advertising dollars supported a media outlet that performed poorly and reflected badly on GM. GM will either save the money or put it into more effective advertising, and the LAT is still free to print whatever it likes. What the Tribune Co. (owners of the LAT) should understand from this development is that its revenue stream will be endangered by the poor performance of its staff -- just like any company in a free-market system.

John Carroll and the Tribune Co. just learned a valuable lesson in free-market economics. They can either improve their product, or continue to rely on their near-monopoly position in Los Angeles to slowly run the newspaper into the ground.

A Big Thank You To My Friends In Canada

Now that the publication ban has been lifted, at least from the Brault testimony (more on that in a moment), the Canadian media have taken over the role of presenting the information that should have been available to Canadians all along. I had planned on reviewing the material for some blogging tonight, but I think that everyone needs to absorb the entire record for a bit first.

Over the past week, I have had the good fortune of interacting with a number of Canadians on this story -- my source, the media, and all the terrific people who have left comments on my blog. Most of you have offered your encouragement and thanks, which are much appreciated. Those who criticized my decision to post the material mostly did so politely and courteously. A number of you have dropped a few loonies in the tip jar along the way, which is much appreciated. A couple of you want me to run for PM, which only proves that political insanity does not exclusively run among Americans, even if we often have a corner on the market.

I'm feeling a bit under the weather tonight, so I'll put off any other blogging until tomorrow. I wanted to make sure that I offered my thanks to all of the new readers who have been so kind during the week, and a big hat tip to everyone who linked to me, especially the Canadian bloggers who risked a contempt charge to do so. Never let it be said that Canadians lack the courage of their convictions.

If the publication ban stays in effect for the testimony of Chuck Guité and I find a source who can report it, CQ will post the material as soon as it becomes available.

Have a great night and make sure to go through the extensive material released today.

Publication Ban Lifted

Justice John Gomery has lifted the publication ban on Jean Brault's testimony, allowing the Canadian media to finally report the testimony to the Canadian public. As CTV demonstrates in its data-dump format, the facts as presented by CQ's source stand up very well against the revelations possible now that the media has been unleashed:

Brault claims in his testimony that he systematically kicked back huge amounts of taxpayer money to the federal Liberal party, a deception he claims involved senior Liberal organizers and people close to former prime minister Jean Chretien.

His testimony detailed secret meetings, phoney paper trails, envelopes stuffed with cash and bogus billings.

* He said there were phoney employees on the payroll at the ad firm Groupaction.
* Brault said there was $1 million in kickbacks to the Liberal Party of Canada.
* His reward, he claims, was $172 million in government business for his firm.

It was always the same story, he told the commission. The Liberal Party needs money. If you want the business, you have to pay.

Brault says most of the kickbacks were cash; that's the way his Liberal handlers wanted it. Simply, he said, so it couldn't be traced.

On one occasion, Brault says he handed $25,000 in cash to Joseph Morselli, a top organizer for former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano.

Brault wanted the bidding for some ad contracts with the justice department delayed. He says Morselli told him the delay would cost $100,000.

The first payment was $25,000, dropped off at a fundraiser for Gagliano, at a restaurant in Montreal's east end.

Brault claims he also put at least five Liberal party workers on Groupaction's payroll. They were paid with sponsorship money to do work for the party.

Other Liberals allegedly got cheques too, disguised as consulting fees, for doing nothing. One of them was Jean Chretien's brother, Gaby.

Brault claims Chretien handed $4,000 to a Liberal candidate.

Brault says Liberal fundraiser Alain Renaud got $63,000, also for doing nothing.

It was clearly, Brault says, a donation to the Liberal Party.

And then, there's Jacques Corriveau, a confidant of former prime minister Jean Chretien.

Brault paid Corriveau's firm nearly $500,000, for no work at all.

He says Corriveau wanted the money for the Liberal party.

Under cross examination, a lawyer for the Liberals suggested Brault didn't really know if some of his payments ended up in Liberal coffers. Brault agreed with that, saying 'You're right."

Well, perhaps the attorney representing the Liberals on the cross-examination felt he scored a point. However, when political appointees demand cash from a government contractor, either the money is for themselves or their party -- and either way, it's corruption.

Justice Gomery only partially lifted the ban, leaving some question whether the ban would continue for Chuck Guité and Paul Coffin. If it does and my source can still produce information on the ongoing testimony, I will continue to publish it here. My hope will be that Justice Gomery realizes that publication bans do nothing but damage public confidence in the government's ability to police itself and hold itself accountable to the electorate. We'll see soon enough if that lesson has sunk in with Justice Gomery.

Adscam Updates And Notes

A couple of updates on Adscam for Canadian readers this morning:

First, after I posted about the Toronto Sun's allegations yesterday about Parti Quebecois receiving Sponsorship Program monies through Groupaction, several people e-mailed and commented that PQ vigorously denied the allegations and that the Sun had reported factually incorrect data. Specifically, the contract to which the Sun tied the illegal payments expired in 1998. However, Greg Weston's column in today's Sun makes the chronology clear :

As we reported yesterday, Alain Renaud, a senior executive who worked for the ad firm Groupaction during the Adscam years, claims that while the company was getting $43 million in sponsorship funds, it was slipping thousands of dollars to the PQ.

In one deal, Renaud says, Groupaction paid about $90,000 to the PQ in return for a $4.5-million advertising contract with the Quebec liquor board, the SAQ.

The PQ, of course, went berserk over the story, denying it with separatist vigour. Groupaction had actually lost the bid for the liquor board contract in late 1998, the party insisted. Too bad Renaud was talking about Groupaction's contract from 1996-97.

It does indeed appear that money spent on convincing the Quebecois not to secede from Canada went into the pockets of the very separatists it was meant to oppose. This led to a particularly uncomfortable exchange between Conservative leader Stephen Harper and Liberal PM Paul Martin during yesterday's Question Period:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper made the perfectly sensible point that since "hundreds of thousands of tax dollars may have been funnelled through the Liberal sponsorship program to the Parti Quebecois, I guess the Keystone Crooks stole the money and gave it to the wrong people."

Harper asked, could the PM "guarantee Canadian taxpayers that not one red cent of their money went to the separatist cause in Quebec in the name of national unity?"

Martin, of course, could give no such guarantee.

In another update, CTV confirms that Justice Gomery will decide this morning whether to continue the publication ban now that Jean Brault's testimony has been completed, and of course reported through this site and others. As I mentioned before, an end to the ban would be the best possible result, as Canadians would get first-hand reporting on the courtroom testimony and all the information they want on the scandal.

However, if Justice Gomery does not lift the ban, my source has prepared an update which will be sent later today to me. I assume that will cover the testimony from Monday and Tuesday, and possibly the cross-examination yesterday. If it comes through -- which is completely at the discretion of my source -- I will post it as soon as I'm able.

UPDATE: Justice Gomery will announce the decision on the ban at 2 pm EDT, according to a separate source.

Gerry Adams To IRA: Drop The Gun

Perhaps finally sensing that the IRA has severely damaged republican efforts in Northern Ireland, longtime IRA apologist and Sinn Féin spokesman Gerry Adams delivered a somewhat surprising speech calling for the paramilitary force to give up its guns for good. However, he held back any specific call to disband:

Gerry Adams yesterday challenged the IRA to consider jettisoning forever its strategy of holding the Armalite in one hand and the ballot box in the other.

In an extraordinary turn of phrase, the Sinn Féin leader said: "In the past I have defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle.

"I did so because there was no alternative for those who would not bend the knee, or turn a blind eye to oppression, or for those who wanted a national republic.

"Now there is an alternative ... the way forward is by building political support for republican and democratic objectives." He appealed to the IRA "to fully embrace and accept this alternative".

At this point, the issue may hinge on how much real control Adams or any of the other secret IRA commanders have over a once pseudomilitary structure that has dissolved into a crime family. IRA members have increasigly participated in a number of squalid crimes, including drunken murders and a spectacular bank heist that netted over £20 million, and enforces its authority by terrorizing the Catholic communities it pretends to protect. In that manner, the IRA more closely resembles the Italian-American Mafia than anything like the Irish freedom fighters of the 1916 Rebellion or the 1922 fight for independence.

Moreover, the IRA's descent into gangsterism has completely shredded Sinn Féin's credibility. SF in the Republic represents a legitimate political constituency, but its role as the political wing for the militants in Northern Ireland makes it, in light of current events, nothing more than a mouthpiece for criminals and terrorists. Adams discovered on his last trip to America in March that we have learned the difference between those who want political change through the ballot box, and those who impose it with bombs and bullets aimed at civilians. While it's too much to hope that Americans of Irish descent have all stopped putting their dollars into the IRA's passed hats on St. Patrick's Day, the cold shoulder Adams received from pols like Peter King and Ted Kennedy put a big dent in his fundraising efforts.

If Adams and Sinn Féin want to get taken seriously as peace partners, they need to start by turning over the murderers of Robert McCartney and James MacGinley, as well as those who threatened witnesses to both crimes, and return the money stolen in the bank heist. Otherwise they will remain nothing but apologists for loathsome thugs who increasingly appear to love the petty power they've created through the muzzle of their guns in the neighborhoods they claim to represent.

Testing Their Mettle

The Iraqi security forces will get their first test of effectiveness in Mosul, as the Americans have assigned an Iraqi army group to secure a strategically significant area of Mosul. So far, the experiment appears to be a success, although others caution about a rush to expand it:

The two dozen Iraqi soldiers marched in formation into downtown Mosul, streets emptying in their path. The men trained their rifles on potential bomb threats: a donkey-drawn vegetable cart, a blue Opel sedan, a man with a bulge beneath his tattered gray coat.

Less than a month ago, U.S. forces patrolled these dangerous streets. But on this humid morning there were only the Iraqis and a lone U.S. adviser, Marine Staff Sgt. Lafayette Waters, 32, of Kinston, N.C., who blended unobtrusively into the patrol.

This is Area of Operations Iraq, slightly more than two square miles in the heart of Iraq's third-largest city. It is also at the center of the U.S. military's strategy to hand off counterinsurgency operations to Iraqi security forces and ultimately draw down the number of American troops.

Since Iraq's Jan. 30 parliamentary elections, that process has accelerated much more rapidly than U.S. commanders have previously acknowledged. Although AO Iraq is one of just two sectors currently under Iraqi control (the other is the area around Baghdad's Haifa Street), two senior U.S. officers said the Iraqis' zone of responsibility would soon expand and eventually include all of Nineveh province, including Mosul and Tall Afar, another volatile city, possibly within a year.

We have worked and built up the Iraqi security forces for precisely this purpose. The US and the Iraqis want to have native army and police forces take over normal security details from Americans, British, and other Coalition forces, relying on us more and more for emergency cases only. This move is a necessary step in strengthening sovereignty for the Iraqis; after all, they cannot feel as if the nation has truly been returned to the people until their own security apparatus becomes fully functional, under their civilian control.

While all of these are laudable goals, we have to guard against pushing too quickly to declare victory and split. As the Post reports, the Iraqis remain poorly equipped and inexperienced, if better trained than Congress acknowledged during Condoleezza Rice's confirmation hearings. In order to instill a truly professional discipline, the Iraqis will require much more training by Western military experts. That should be combined with a substantial transfer of armored materiel and modernized small and medium arms to the Iraqi Army, which will need it to combat the local jihadists in their midst.

However, the Mosul experiment gives the Iraqis a chance to create a background of success for themselves that will allow them to build a foundation for their esprit de corps. Handling the job of AO Iraq on their own, with just a single American as an advisor, will inspire not just the soldiers of the Iraqi unit but ordinary Iraqis in the street who want to know that their country will truly be theirs. Expanding that optimisim which started with the capture of Saddam Hussein and exploded into full flower during the January 30th elections will be the final and most important victory of the US and its coalition.

American Media Catches Up To Adscam

One complaint that Americans receive from Canadians, and deservedly so, is how little our media covers Canadian issues, leaving Americans poorly informed of the affairs of our northern neighbors. I don't believe it to be deliberate, but in an effort to cover global hot spots, our media gives Canada short shrift. I wondered when I started writing about Adscam when the American media would pick up on the story, if at all, since it held the real possibility of toppling the government.

Ironically, the tremendous interest from Canada in this blog has caught the notice of American media and put Adscam in our newspapers. Yesterday and this morning, several articles appeared around the country, including an interview I did with the New York Times which went out on their wire service to newspapers all over. Clifford Krauss spoke with me yesterday and explained Adscam to Americans:

Edward Morrissey, a 42-year-old Minneapolis area call-center manager who runs a Web log, or blog, called Captain's Quarters as a hobby, last Saturday began posting allegations of corruption that reached the highest levels of the Canadian Liberal Party. The postings violate a publication ban instituted a few days earlier by a federal judge, Justice John Gomery, who is leading an investigation into accusations of money laundering and kickbacks in a government program from the 1990's that was aimed at undermining Quebec separatists.

The scandal, which involves government payments of up to $85 million to a handful of Montreal advertising firms for little or no work, has dominated national politics for a year and led to the Liberals losing their majority in the House of Commons last June.

But Justice Gomery moved to limit dissemination of information from the otherwise public hearing in Montreal so as not to influence potential jurors for coming trials in which a government bureaucrat and two advertising executives face criminal charges.

Krauss writes more about the ban, which is the same angle that interested John Tabin at The American Spectator. Tabin opines about the ban after explaining the scandal and CQ's role in exposing some of the testimony -- and doing so in a critical but accurate manner. Tabin explains his purpose to TAS' readers:

Why is Morrissey reporting all this? Why am I repeating it? Quite simply, the publication ban is an abomination. The condescending notion that the jury in Brault's criminal trial might be irretrievably biased by media reports hardly justifies keeping ordinary Canadians in the dark about things that Ottawa's cognoscenti can't stop talking about. Canadian television reporters show images of Brault weeping on the stand, but then say, farcically, they can't reveal what made him break down. (He'd just recounted how he was told to hire a Liberal crony or lose a contract with Via Rail, Canada's state-run passenger train service.) Canada's attorney general has already talked about pursuing Canadian bloggers merely for linking to Captain's Quarters, possibly charging them with contempt of court. What makes the ban especially disturbing is the rumor that the Liberals could call a snap election before the testimony becomes public to avoid accountability at the polls.

As Canadian blogger and sometime TAS contributor Colby Cosh notes, free expression is a fundamental right under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Judges are advised to use publication bans sparingly and with grave concern for Charter principles, and -- unlike many Canadian judges -- Gomery actually did so, in such a way that suggests he might be amenable to lifting the ban. The efficacy of the ban is a factor in the decision to lift it or continue it; the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that an infringement on Charter liberties must have a "rational connection" to the intended benefit. If Americans are reporting what Canadians cannot, the argument for the ban weakens. And so, writes Cosh, "it would actively help free the hands of Canadian webloggers and reporters if our foreign cousins were to be aggressive about "publishing" the substance of the Brault testimony outside the reach of Canadian law" (emphasis his).

Happy to oblige.

And in yesterday's Dallas Morning News, Adscam and the publication ban was the topic of their lead editorial. The editors at DMN don't share my optimism about avoiding any complications at breaking the ban, however:

The lesson would seem to be that in this Internet era, it is futile for governments to try to keep information out of the hands of the people. Not so fast: There is a reasonable chance that the Canadian government will prosecute Mr. Morrissey under Canadian law and request that American courts enforce their ruling.

Before "Captain Ed" ends up in the dock, we hope U.S. courts realize that technology has created a new worldwide information environment where old laws simply no longer fit reality. The poor Canadian judge looks like King Canute – or should we say King Canuck – vainly ordering the tide to reverse course.

They could try, I suppose, but I think they'd be unlikely to succeed in even receiving a hearing -- and I believe I'd find excellent representation to ensure it didn't go any farther than that if I needed it.

Finally, the local Minneapolis Star-Tribune called last night for an interview and ran it in today's edition, which must have just barely made it in before deadline. Chao Xiong wrote a good piece on the controversy and my role in it, along with some quotes from the Canadian media, an angle that appears unique amoung American coverage so far:

"Within hours of [the blog] being posted people found it and were passing it around," said Bob Cox, night editor of the Toronto newspaper, The Globe and Mail. "There was a great desire amongst Canadians for the information."

Before the blog was discovered, a number of news media outlets had hired a lawyer in anticipation of challenging the publication ban, Cox said. That effort could be bolstered now that the blog has turned water cooler talk into easily accessible, widespread information, he said.

Morrissey has received news media attention in Canada, where because of the ban the news media cannot explicitly discuss information on his blog.

"As a Canadian journalist, I can tell you it's frustrating," Cox said. "Every Canadian with a computer can sit down and read it, but we can't publish it. We're kind of envious that he [Morrissey] can do this."

At least for the moment, Americans have an opportunity to catch up with Canada and learn more about our friends to the north. It may not be the most pleasant of topics, but the analysis provided by the articles gives better insight into the issues that drive Canadian politics and hopefully will stir further interest south of the 49th Parallel.

Schiavo Memo Author Fesses Up, Resigns

After two weeks of guesswork and poorly sourced media releases, the Washington Post's Mike Allen reports tonight that the author of the idiotic Schiavo talking-points memo has confessed to his authorship of the document. Brian Darling, legal counsel to GOP Senator Mel Martinez of Florida, tendered his resignation along with his confession, both of which Martinez immediately accepted:

The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night.

Brian Darling, a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group on gun rights and other issues, offered his resignation and it was immediately accepted, Martinez said.

Martinez said he earlier had been assured by aides that his office had nothing to do with producing the memo. "I never did an investigation, as such," he said. "I just took it for granted that we wouldn't be that stupid. It was never my intention to in any way politicize this issue."

Quite frankly, based on the poor presentation of this memo -- with its typographical errors, mislabeled Senate bill number, and the inept political approach it took -- it's difficult to understand why Brian Darling ever got a job in anyone's political office, let alone that of a US Senator. Darling didn't do Martinez or the GOP any favors by staying silent about his role, either. Had he owned up to writing the memo the first day it became controversial, it would have disappeared from the headlines as quickly as it rose. His resignation should really have been rejected; Martinez should have insisted on firing him instead.

John Hinderaker of Power Line also notes that the discovery only partially explains the poor reporting of the memo's origins. ABC and the Post initially insisted that the memo came from GOP party "leaders", which Darling and Martinez -- a freshman GOP Senator with all of three months' seniority -- hardly qualify as being. He still wants an explanation from Allen about these questions, and will post a reply if he gets one.

UPDATE: Read Michelle Malkin for the best distillation of the excesses on both sides of this issue.

Poor Saddam!

You're Saddam Hussein, and you're depressed.

Imagine that you are the dictator of an oil-rich country, where your whims are law and any irritating presence gets immediately dispatched. Potentates bow before you; heads of state from Western nations greedily take your kickbacks in order to help you sell your natural resources to the highest bidder, and in exchange continually thwart your enemies. You've managed to consolidate all power into the hands of your family and closest cronies, and the only question about your death is which of your sons to put on the throne after you.

Then imagine that all of the money you've paid out in bribes and kickbacks stops working, and that your partners in graft can't stop the world's most powerful military force in history from grinding your army into mincemeat in a matter of weeks. Your sons put up a better fight than you do, dying in a hail of bullets, while you get hauled out of a glorified latrine hole in the middle of the desert without even firing a shot in your own defense. The liberators toss you into a cell where they leave you in the care of your former victims, who leave you and the rest of your retinue to watch TV until they can figure out the best way to deal with you.

Sitting there in your cell, you fantasize about the stupidity of your former subjects. You thought they were nothing more than dogs when you were in charge; you knew they needed someone to tell them what to do and how to live. Perhaps you laugh at the notion that anyone could possibly expect the diverse population that you controlled with such an iron grip to get together and govern themselves rationally as a nation. You prepare for the day when the entire country collapses in on itself and the people once again turn to you to lead them out of chaos.

Then one day, you turn on the TV, and see this:

Jalal Talabani, a former Kurdish guerrilla commander and sworn enemy of Saddam, was elected to the highest office in a parliamentary ballot, bringing a new government a step closer.

Under Saddam the only way Mr Talabani would have left his northern redoubt was in chains or a coffin, but yesterday he arrived in Baghdad in a blaze of triumph.

How do you react?

Saddam Hussein watched the televised election of Iraq's new president from his jail cell yesterday and was "clearly upset", a senior official said. ...

It was galling viewing for Saddam, according to Bakhtiar Amin, the human rights minister, who said the former dictator had chosen to view the recording of the parliamentary vote.

"He was clearly upset. He realised that it was over, that a democratic process had taken place and that there was a new, elected president," Mr Amin told Reuters.

He said the footage demonstrating the progress towards a democratically elected government could change attitudes in the prison camp where Saddam and his former aides are being held.

"They know for sure that they are not coming back and my feeling is that they may be inclined to be more honest when they go before the tribunal," he said.

Yes. You're Saddam Hussein .... and you're very, very depressed.

Publication Ban Decision Tomorrow

Justice Gomery has put off a decision on lifting the publication ban on Adscam testimony until tomorrow, in part because Liberal cross-examination of Jean Brault took longer than expected:

Mr. Justice John Gomery decided late in the day Wednesday that he needed more time to consider whether to allow the testimony of Mr. Brault to be reported in the media after Mr. Brault completed his time on the stand.

Judge Gomery is to make a decision Thursday morning.

If he lifts the ban, it may start the ball rolling for opposition parties to pose a non-confidence motion in the Liberals and potentially bring the government down. Opposition parties believe that Mr. Brault's testimony is extremely damaging to the Liberal Party.

If the ban gets lifted, expect the media to explode with information. Based on a few conversations I've had with some Canadian journalists, they cannot wait to tell you this story.

Adscam: It's Not Just For Liberals Any More

The Toronto Sun has developed its own independent sources into the Sponsorship Program scandal, uncovering more corruption at Groupaction while Jean Brault testifies under a publication ban at the Gomery Inquiry. The Canadian website Angry in the Great White North points out the article by Greg Weston, who reveals that the Liberals were not the only beneficiaries of the political shenanigans at Groupaction:

A MONTREAL advertising firm that received more than $40 million in AdScam sponsorship contracts paid huge kickbacks to both the federal Liberal party and the Quebec separatists, senior executives of the company have told Sun Media. "I remember seeing the cheques," one former Groupaction executive said of payments to the federal Liberal party in Quebec.

The man spoke on condition that he not be identified until he testifies at the Gomery inquiry sometime over the coming weeks.

The exec said the president of Groupaction, Jean Brault, made no secret around the company about where the kickback cash was going and for what.

"He spoke to me about it ... having to pay money back to the Liberal Party" in return for contracts.

But the source makes clear that the separatist Parti Quebecois duplicated the Liberal efforts to launder political contributions through Groupaction and its employees. This may come as a shock to Canadians, as the Sponsorship Program was specifically designed to help the Quebecois feel more comfortable as part of the Canadian nation:

The $250 million in sponsorships that the previous Liberal government pumped into Quebec was supposed to help fight the separatists after the near-miss referendum in 1995.

But another former Groupaction executive, Alain Renaud, said that while the firm was getting millions of dollars in federal sponsorship money, it was secretly cutting cheques to the separatist Parti Quebecois.

Renaud said that in one transaction, a total of about $90,000 was given to the PQ as part of Groupaction's getting a $4.5-million advertising contract for the Quebec liquor board, called the SAQ.

Groupaction apparently won the contract in a competition when a bagman for the Parti Quebecois had a meeting with the firm's top executives.

One of those executives told Sun Media: "The bagman came by and said: 'Well, you won the bid, and all that's needed now is a signature, and the documents are on the minister's desk to be signed, and it's going to cost you fifty grand.' "

Renaud recalled about $45,000 a year in donations were to be paid to the PQ for two years.

In other words, a good part of the $250 million that Canadians spent out of their tax money to hold onto Quebec went not only to the Liberal Party for their re-election efforts and personal gain -- it also went to the separatists that the government wanted to rebut.

How's that for irony?

If this comes out in the Gomery Inquiry, expect PQ to demand standing as the Liberals have received to cross-examine witnesses. That legal standing may wind up being the Scarlet Letter of Adscam.

Adscam Trials Delayed Until June

Justice Lise Côté postponed the trials of Jean Brault and Chuck Guité until June 2nd, far shorter than the September date the two men requested to prepare their defense. The shorter date calls into question whether Justice Gomery will lift the publication ban as had been anticipated in the event of a postponement:

A Montreal judge has postponed the criminal fraud trials of ad executive Jean Brault and former bureaucrat Chuck Guité until June 6, putting into question whether a ban on explosive testimony Mr. Brault provided at the sponsorship inquiry will be lifted.

Quebec Superior Court Justice Lise Côté decided Wednesday to put the two men's criminal trials over until June 6. They were supposed to have begun on May 2, but Mr. Brault and Mr. Guité argued that they did not have enough time to prepare for that date. They had asked that their trials be delayed until September. ... The ban was instated to ensure that the jury at Mr. Brault's trial not be tainted by information out of the Gomery inquiry.

It difficult to say what move Judge Gomery will make now that Mr. Brault's criminal trial has been delayed only one month.

I don't think that the extra four weeks will make much difference to Justice Gomery on lifting the publication ban. What will impact the decision is how much of Brault's testimony has already escaped the ban through CQ and other websites, and the tremendous public interest the information generated in Canada. If Gomery thinks that more compelling information may come out, he may decide that a full disclosure to the public, including cross-examination by Liberal lawyers, will serve Brault better than a selective release through a single source. That decision would be the correct one, of course, and the decision he should have made in the first place.

Interestingly, Gomery had given Liberals standing in the inquiry, which allows them to cross-examine witnesses such as Brault. Today he denied standing to Conservatives and BQ, stating that their parties have not been directly affected by the testimony. In a subtle way, Canadians should understand from that decision that the witnesses have testified to significant wrongdoing by Liberal politicians and bureaucrats, but have not implicated anyone else.

If I hear more from my source, I will post it as soon as I'm able.

Jimmy Karma

With the unprecedented announcement that President Bush would attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II, small notice was given to the fact that not every living ex-President would travel along with Bush to the Vatican. Bush's father and Bill Clinton -- the political Odd Couple these days -- were selected to attend, but Jimmy Carter got left off the list. (Gerald Ford is considered too frail for extended travel now.) Carter eventually griped publicly about the snub, but as the Prowler explains, he can hardly claim to be surprised after his actions over the past four years:

According to White House sources, Carter's representatives, apparently from the former president's Carter Center, reached out to the White House over the weekend and offered to lead the U.S. delegation should the President or other senior Bush administration officials not be able to attend.

"There was no misunderstanding. It wasn't Carter who made the actual call, but the message was pure Carter gumption," says a White House source. "We were getting lots of calls from lots of people looking to get on this delegation. I would say over the weekend alone we got more than 100 requests, maybe more."

Carter went public on Tuesday with his dissatisfaction at not being invited, after the White House announced that the official delegation would be made up of the current and two prior sitting Presidents, and Secretary of State Rice. ...

"The other thing that people forget is that Carter has treated President Bush very badly. He has openly criticized the President in a manner that President Clinton has not," says a Bush administration source. "He has traveled around the world bad-mouthing this president and this country's policies. I would be surprised if a single person gave a thought to including him in the delegation."

Former American presidents have a tradition of avoiding criticism of the current occupant of the White House, one which almost every ex-president has upheld, except Carter. Not only has Carter made every attempt possible to annoy Bush, he did the same thing with Bill Clinton -- remember Haiti and North Korea? He managed to mostly keep his mouth shut during Bush 41's term, but was more vocal during Reagan's years in office. After a long and well-established track record as a pain in the ass, Carter can hardly expect us to sympathize with him for being left off of a state visit to anywhere, let alone the funeral of a Pope who, as the Prowler also notes, didn't think too highly of the former President himself.

Perhaps Carter can sit around the house this week and contemplate how much better off he and the rest of us would be if he had just focused on building houses for the poor after he got rejected for a second term in the White House.

Arab Oppression The Fault Of US, Israel?

Arab intellectuals in Jordan have issued a report that strongly urges Arab nations to reform their governments and democratize in order to broaden their economies and make up a "knowledge deficit". However, the report undermines the serious nature of their recommendations by claiming that Arab oppression and backwardness has its root causes with the United States and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip:

A group of Arab intellectuals have called for rapid progress toward democracy in the Arab world and contended that the United States and Israel have impeded such progress, in a report issued here Tuesday. ...

The report warns that Arab governments may soon face the prospect of civil strife or change forced by outsiders unless swift and fundamental reforms are begun. But, in a departure from two earlier reports on Arab society in which the group focused almost exclusively on problems within the Arab world, this study says the United States and Israel have also played a part in suppressing Arab freedom. The Bush administration, in Washington, objected to that conclusion.

In part, the study blames the dearth of democracy and freedom in the region on the structure of modern Arab states, which have become highly centralized, mostly offering their citizens only a small margin of freedom. Even in the region's limited democracies, the report says, societies and economies are organized in a way that prevents the emergence of an effective opposition. ...

The report also said that one result of the American invasion of Iraq was that "the Iraqi people have emerged from the grip of a despotic regime that violated their basic rights and freedoms, only to fall under a foreign occupation that increased human suffering."

"One-tenth of Arabs live directly under foreign occupation," Ms. Khalaf told an audience on Tuesday.

All this makes sense -- if you believe that Arab oppression began in 1967, which is absolutely ludicrous. The Israeli occupation began as a result of four Arab nations using the West Bank (and the Sinai and Golan Heights as well) as a launching pad (for the second time) for an invasion of Israel, and the Israeli victory over all five hapless Arab armies. Oddly enough, the Israelis didn't feel like allowing the Arabs to give it a third try. None of the five Arab nations involved were liberal democracies at the time. None of them are now, except for Iraq, and that's only because of American intervention.

Arab dictatorships and kleptocracies have a long and sorry history stretching back far beyond the founding of either Israel or the United States. Blaming America for the political disasters that the Arabs have foisted upon themselves only feeds the tinfoil-hat impulses of the Arabs to create their own special victim class. It makes for a handy excuse for inaction, which these so-called intellectuals have glibly provided.

NYT Plays Numbers Games With DeLay

The headline certainly sounds damning: "Political Groups Paid Two Relatives Of House Leader", a bold-type come-on that attracts the eye nicely. Philip Shenon's lead paragraph presses the case even more urgently, using a nice, large sum to get the readers' attention. But once one reads past the first couple of paragraphs -- and uses their elementary-school math -- one realizes that not only does the Gray Lady have nothing unusual to report, but that she's playing games with the numbers.

Let's take a look at the lead first:

The wife and daughter of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, have been paid more than $500,000 since 2001 by Mr. DeLay's political action and campaign committees, according to a detailed review of disclosure statements filed with the Federal Election Commission and separate fund-raising records in Mr. DeLay's home state, Texas.

Most of the payments to his wife, Christine A. DeLay, and his only child, Dani DeLay Ferro, were described in the disclosure forms as "fund-raising fees," "campaign management" or "payroll," with no additional details about how they earned the money. The payments appear to reflect what Mr. DeLay's aides say is the central role played by the majority leader's wife and daughter in his political career.

Mr. DeLay's national political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, or Armpac, said in a statement on Tuesday that the two women had provided valuable services to the committee in exchange for the payments: "Mrs. DeLay provides big picture, long-term strategic guidance and helps with personnel decisions. Ms. Ferro is a skilled and experienced professional event planner who assists Armpac in arranging and organizing individual events."

Mrs. Ferro has managed several of her father's re-election campaigns for his House seat.

Sounds pretty damning, doesn't it? Half a million dollars to his wife and "child" amounts to a nice lump of cash. The NYT makes this sound like a gross violation of either the law or House ethics, as if family members never serve as paid employees or consultants to Congressional PACs. Except that in the very next paragraph, we find out that the exact opposite is the case:

Although several members of Congress employ family members as campaign managers or on their political action committees, advocacy groups seeking an overhaul of federal campaign-finance and ethics laws say that the payments to Mr. DeLay's family members were unusually generous, and should be the focus of new scrutiny of the Texas congressman.

Oh, okay. Now the problem isn't that DeLay hired his wife and daughter -- it's that they were overpaid, at least according to "advocacy groups". Let's take a look at that, then, although now we have to skip down three more paragraphs:

The payments to Mr. DeLay's family have continued into 2005; the latest monthly disclosure filed by Americans for a Republican Majority shows Mrs. DeLay was paid was paid $4,028 last month, while Mrs. Ferro received $3,681. Earlier statements show that the two women received similar monthly fees from the political action committee throughout 2003 and 2004.

At that rate, Mrs. DeLay makes about $48,250 a year, while Mrs. Ferro earns closer to $40,000. At that rate over four years, the two of them put together would have made around $350,000. The remainder of the half-million comes from Mrs. Ferro's consulting firm which works on DeLay's election campaigns; it received $221,000 over four years (two election cycles), or about $55,000 a year.

Now let's take a look at a couple of other examples, buried even farther into the Times article:

Republican lawmakers can point to prominent Democrats whose campaign and political action committees have provided lucrative jobs or consulting contracts to family members. Representative Howard L. Berman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House ethics committee from 1997 to 2003, paid $50,000 from his campaign accounts last year to a consulting firm owned by his brother, according to disclosure forms. Disclosure statements also show that Senator Barbara Boxer, another California Democrat, directed $15,000 from her political action committee in 2003 to a consulting firm run by her son.

So even the amounts are not terribly unusual, especially given the Berman example -- and I don't recall the Times writing big headlines out of Berman's hiring practices. All we have is Philip Shenon using aggregate numbers to paint a misleading picture of Tom DeLay doing what other Congressmen and Senators do in hiring their families for staff members and consultants.

Don't get me wrong. I think the practice itself is a problem, one that we should pressure our representatives to end. It can lead to back-door corruption far too easily. However, for the Times and the Left to jump all over DeLay as unethical and singular in this practice is dishonest, ignorant, and transparently partisan.

Scandale Des Commandites

The following is a translation of the two installments of Jean Brault's testimony at the Gomery Inquiry into French, for the benefit of readers in Quebec. The translation was kindly provided to me by CQ reader P.E. from Montréal. The bulk of the post will be in the extended comments; just click on the link below to read the entire post.

1) Pots-de-vin et ristournes
====================

Le jeudi 31 mars 2005, Jean Brault a commencé à livrer son témoignage (encore soumis à une interdiction de publication) et a révélé l'existence d'un gigantesque système de corruption étendant ses tentacules jusqu'aux plus hauts niveaux du Parti libéral. Brault a révélé l'existence de transactions fictives s'élevant à des centaines de milliers de dollars, faites au profit du Parti libéral de 1994 à 2002.

La plupart des contributions électorales illégales consistaient à ce que Brault engage des «employés» —qui étaient en fait des employés à temps plein du Parti libéral— ou qu'il paie lui-même des factures pour dépenses électorales (qui n'étaient de fait jamais déclarées), ou encore qu'il fasse des dons aux dirigeants du Parti en argent comptant, ce qui les rendait absolument impossibles à retracer. En échange de ce coup de main au Québec, Brault a reçu des millions de dollars de contrats publicitaires de la part du gouvernement.

Brault a affirmé avoir rencontré Jean Carle, un assistant du premier ministre de l'époque, Jean Chrétien, afin d'assurer à Groupaction une plus grande part de l'assiette publicitaire allouée au Québec. Carle a alors référé M. Brault au fonctionnaire Charles (Chuck) Guité et lui a dit «qu'il y avait de la place pour tout le monde». Guité a par la suite monté de toutes pièces le programme des commandites, dans lequel cinq firmes reliées de près au Parti libéral —dont Groupaction— se voyaient octroyer un monopole de fait sur les commandites gouvernementales (panneaux-réclame dans les activités sportives ou culturelles, par exemple) et d'autres tâches apparentées. Le programme des commandites est rapidement devenu une caisse noire dans laquelle plus de 250 millions $ ont été versés, ce qui inclut plus de 100 millions octroyées aux agences publicitaires sans presque aucun service légitime n'ait été rendu en contrepartie.

En échange de ces juteux contrats, n'impliquant pas ou peu de travail, Brault a contribué largement au Parti libéral, et a mis des organisateurs du Parti à son service (y compris, à un certain moment, le frère de Jean Chrétien [NDT âgé de 88 ans], Gaby Chrétien) même s'ils continuaient à effectuer du travail pour le Parti. Brault a payé des factures pour des services rendus au Parti, et a fait passer les donations en argent comptant via l'organisateur (et associé du ministre des Travaux publics Alfonso Gagliano) Joe Morselli.

Un racket de «protection»?
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Vers la fin du programme des commandites, les amis et associés du ministre des Travaux publics et ancien ambassadeur au Danemark Alfonso Gagliano —dont certains ont été membres du crime organisé— ont joué un rôle plus important dans ce système.

Un jour, l'associé de Gagliano Tony Mignacca a dit à Brault que s'il ne réengageait pas [Alain] Renaud (qui avait quitté Groupaction pour fonder une autre firme), il perdrait son contrat nouvellement acquis avec Via Rail, transporteur ferroviaire et société de la Couronne. Brault a fondu en larmes après avoir révélé ce fait. Lors d'une réunion tenue en 2001 avec Joe Morselli, Brault a affirmé avoir pris rendez-vous dans une pièce de restaurant surchauffée, de manière à inviter Morselli à enlever son manteau et pouvoir déceler si celui-ci portait un «body pack» [NDT, veste rembourrée servant à camoufler des équipements électroniques, des armes, de la drogue, etc.]

Ceci n'est que le début du témoignage de Jean Brault. Si la Commission Gomery peut corroborer les propos de Brault, alors les tentacules de la corruption, s'étendant dans toutes les strates du Parti libéral,seront exposées et cela expliquera la capacité de ce Parti à faire des campagnes électorales plus vigoureuses que leurs opposants Conservateurs. Après tout, les Libéraux ont siphonné des centaines de millions de dollars pour promouvoir leurs propres intérêts et s'assurer du monopole du pouvoir. Ils ont détourné l'assiette foncière canadienne pour financer leurs élections, en cachant la provenance des fonds.

Encore bien d'autres révélations s'en viennent, mais il est facile de comprendre pourquoi les politiciens libéraux ont déjà commencé à paniquer! [NDT il y a eu des rumeurs d'élections anticipées sur la Colline parlementaire, en ce lundi 4 avril]

2) Scandale des commandites: le témoignage de Brault continue
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Ce second chapitre du témoignage de Jean Brault à la Commission Gomery date du vendredi 1 avril. Demeurez conscients que ces informations ne proviennent que d'une seule source, et que le témoin n'a pas encore été contre-interrogé. Le témoignage d'aujourd'hui (4 avril) est encore à l'état de notes manuscrites et ne peut être publié pour l'instant.

Les connexions de Paul Martin
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Jusqu'ici, Jean Brault a témoigné qu'en sus des 250 000 $ USD que sa compagnie a légitimement versés au Parti libéral, une somme à peu près équivalente a été versée «sous la table» (en argent comptant, ou en transférant les sommes via des tierces parties, personnes physiques ou morales). La valeur de la contribution en «nature» (employés du Parti libéral déguisés en employés de Groupaction) avoisine les 200 000$. La plupart des propos de Brault semblent impliquer les cercles autour de Jean Chrétien et Alfonso Gagliano, qui sont tous deux personae non gratae dans la «nouvelle» administration de Paul Martin.

Les liens directs avec le régime actuel semblent ténus, or le témoignage de Brault suggère que ces liens existent tout de même.

En fait, Brault a été invité à se joindre à un comité consultatif pour Rogers Cantel —compagnie de téléphonie cellulaire, présidée par Francis Fox, ancien ministre et proche collaborateur de Paul Martin. (Fox a aussi oeuvré en tant que secrétaire principal de M. Martin au moment ou celui-ci est devenu premier ministre.) Lors d'un dîner d'affaires, un autre organisateur de Paul Martin et ex-ministre, Jacques Olivier, a encouragé Brault à relancer Corriveau, car ce dernier lui ouvrirait bien des portes. (Olivier faisait mention de l'allié de Jean Chrétien Jacques Corriveau, à qui Brault avait donné des contrats publicitaires en sous-traitance.) Cela révèle qu'au moins deux organisateurs clés de Paul Martin au Québec étaient au courant de ce qui se tramait avec les commandites et autres contrats fédéraux.

Une autre connexion existe en la personne d'Yvon Desrochers, lui aussi organisateur libéral et ex-assistant de Francis Fox. Lorsque Brault fut questionné au sujet d'une éventuelle interférence politique dans l'octroi des contrats de commandites, celui-ci a répondu que Desrochers et Corriveau «poussaient fort» pour que des fonds fédéraux soient versés afin de rénover le Théâtre Corona, dans la circonscription de la ministre Lucienne Robillard (toujours en poste à l'heure actuelle au cabinet de Paul Martin, en tant que ministre des affaires intergouvernementales), même s'il y avait des rapports faisant état de «problèmes de construction» [NDT dépassement de coûts?]. La personne responsable du transfert de fonds aurait été intimée «d'émettre les chèques et de ne pas poser de questions».

Des liens étroits existent entre Fox, Desrochers, le responsable de la collecte de fonds et ex-hockeyeur Serge Savard, et une autre firme impliquée dans le scandale des commandites, le Groupe Everest. Tous ces éléments font partie de l'entourage de Paul Martin —et non celui de Jean Chrétien— au sein de la branche québécoise du Parti libéral. Il est à noter que Desrochers s'est suicidé en février 2005, après la découverte d'un autre scandale, celui de l'organisation du Championnat du monde des sports aquatiques, dans laquelle des millions de dollars ont disparu inexplicablement.

D'autre noms ont été cités, en lien avec l'entourage de Paul Martin. Parmi les gens «engagés» par Brault (travaillant en fait pour le Parti libéral) figuraient Georges Farrah, qui allait plus tard devenir secrétaire parlementaire sous Paul Martin, ainsi que John Welch, désormais au service de la ministre du Patrimoine Liza Frulla. (La recommandation de faire travailler Welch chez Groupaction provenait de Denis Paradis, un député libéral lui aussi de l'entourage de Paul Martin.)

Brault a affirmé que «l'homme fort» de Gagliano, Joe Morselli, lui avait dit qu'il pouvait «régler des problèmes éventuels» et de «parler à Denis» —en faisant référence cette fois à Denis Coderre, lui aussi lieutenant de Paul Martin!

En résumé, beaucoup de liens ont émergé dans le témoignage de Jean Brault mettant en cause des gens que Paul Martin a nommés à des fonctions officielles —bien que Martin ait affirmé catégoriquement aux canadiens, en 2004, qu'il avait posé des questions à tous ses proches collaborateurs et s'était assuré qu'aucun n'ait jamais trempé dans le scandale des commandites.

Si le témoignage de Jean Brault tient le coup lors du contre-interrogatoire, les réputations de Chrétien et Gagliano seront réduites à néant, mais il y a fort à parier que les réputations de nombreux ministres, députés et organisateurs du camp Martin en seront grandement affectées aussi.

Did UN Falsify Congo Report?

The United Nations may face yet another scandal, the BBC reports tonight, regarding its conduct in the UN mission to the Congo. A UN whistleblower claims that a key report included falsified allegations of a Rwandan invasion of Congo:

The United Nations says it is looking into allegations that a UN document contained false information that caused instability in war-torn central Africa. A former UN employee, the American intelligence analyst William Church, told the BBC the details were added to a public UN report by other UN staff.

The report stated Rwanda mounted a military incursion against neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo last year. ... [A] dissenting member of the UN panel, William Church, has now told the BBC that the Rwandan invasion was a false claim added by other panel members who had come under pressure from un-named sources.

The chair of the UN investigation, the Algerian diplomat Abdulahi Baali, has told the BBC that he is now looking into what he called "serious allegations".

The reports of the Rwanda incursion started in December 2004, and the UN report supposedly confirmed it. It become one of the reasons why the UN remains in the Congo to this day, despite their exploitation of Congolese women and children for sexual gratification. If it turns out that the report was faked, the entire mission to Congo becomes suspect -- and once again, we will have the ridiculously corrupt United Nations playing politics with its peacekeeping missions.

It won't have the impact of Oil for Food or the sex scandals, but it underscores the complete lack of credibility from which Turtle Bay suffers. If the UN wished one a Good Morning, the recipient of the greeting would be forgiven the impulse to steal a peek out the nearest window to see if it were true.

More Iraqi Movement Towards Government

The Iraqi National Assembly took another big step towards seating its first democratically elected government in decades today, agreeing to the key positions of the presidency and two vice-presidents and enabling the Assembly to finally select a prime minister:

The assembly is expected to name Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader, as president; Adel Abdul Mahdi, a prominent Shiite Arab politician, as vice president; and Sheik Ghazi al-Yawar, the Sunni Arab president of the interim government, as the other vice president, said Hussein al-Shahristani, an assembly vice speaker.

The agreement ends a stark impasse between the main parties that had threatened to wreck the confidence built during the Jan. 30 elections, when Iraqis defied insurgent threats to walk in droves to polling stations. The Iraqi public has shown increasing impatience with the gridlock, and American military commanders have warned that a continued lack of a government could lead to a rise in insurgent violence. ...

The president and vice presidents, who make up the presidency council, will have two weeks to name a prime minister, who would then select a cabinet. The new government would have to be approved by a majority vote of the assembly.

The new PM will almost surely be Shi'ite Ibrahim Jaafari; the turnout of the electorate demands that the executive be led by a Shi'ite. That will end centuries of oppression in Iraq for the Shi'a, who have chafed under Sunni domination since the beginnings of the Ottoman Empire. The Kurds, on the other hand, get what they wanted in the presidency. As Edward Wong writes, the post will have great influence over the writing of the new, permanent constitution, and the Kurds want to ensure their autonomy in a federal system. That, and having Kirkuk moved into the Kurdish province, are the two great goals of the Iraqi Kurds.

What of the Sunni? They got one of the VP positions, a key for their participation. Despite his earlier protest that he would not accept the position, interim president and Sunni Ghazi al-Yawer took the open VP position. That means all three major sects will be represented in the "presidency council", which will formally select the PM. More importantly, they will bargain with Jaafari for cabinet positions in order to work as many of their ministers into key government appointments as possible. Whatever damage the Sunni did by boycotting the election, they cannot say now that they lacked influence on the eventual outcome of the government.

The Iraqis appear to be learning the ropes, perhaps not as quickly as we would prefer, but remarkable under the circumstances nonetheless. The real point of interest will be to see who winds up with the Oil Ministry. Expect to see plenty of interest from all three major sects in getting high-level appointments in that bureaucracy.

Adscam And Media Updates

My source for the testimony for the Gomery Inquiry has told me not to expect an update today on yesterday's or today's hearings tonight. The actions of the Attorney General have spooked some people in the courtroom, and apparently Justice Gomery has threatened to clear out the spectators and the TV feeds if the leaks continue. Things may change tomorrow, or even later on tonight. If I get an update, I will post it as soon as I'm able.

Just as yesterday, I did a number of interviews with Canadian media today. Most of the questions were the same, but the people with whom I spoke were uniformly friendly, courteous, and gracious. This has been true across Canada, as I believe I have spoken with media in almost every province now. It's been quite impressive. The last Canadian interview I did was for a magazine in Montreal, and they asked me what kind of impression I have of Canadians after this, and I told him that after doing a number of interviews and reading the thoughtful comments and e-mails from my site, I have a new appreciation for Canada.

The last interview of the day was with News.com's Declan McCullagh, who interviewed FEC commissioner Bradley Smith and touched off the blog reaction to the new Internet regulation that the FEC proposed. The interview became more of a chat, and Declan has already posted his take on our talk:

Morrissey now has laryngitis as a result of a rapid-fire series of interviews from Canadian news organizations. He's found them a bit bizarre. "They can't ask me about the case itself because they can't reproduce anything that has to do with the testimony," Morrissey said in an interview. "They can't ask me about my blog because they can't reproduce the URL."

Canadian publications and bloggers have been left in the difficult position of attempting to describe the violation of a judicial order without revealing which Web site did it. The National Post claimed it could not mention Morrissey by name, and one blogger in Toronto wrote that "I have avoided linking to the U.S. blogger in question. I also deleted a comment someone posted" with alleged Adscam testimony.

Canada's attorney general is investigating the legality of the U.S. blog posting. Government lawyers may charge Canadian Web publishers with contempt of court if they reproduce some of the Adscam testimony or perhaps even link to Morrissey's blog, the Toronto Sun reported.

That announcement is prompting Morrissey to worry about two possibilities: his confidential source being scared away, and a vacation that his family has planned in nearby Canada. "They can find me in contempt of court," he said. "That's fine. I just won't travel to Canada until it expires."

Actually, I was kidding about the vacation in Canada, although I'd certainly love to visit there again sometime soon without getting pinched at the border. I do have to keep in mind, though, that Justice Gomery can issue a contempt citation against me. It would have little weight here in Minnesota, but if I crossed the border, it would become a bit more of a problem.

Finally, let me again apologize for the difficulties in connecting to the website. Hosting Matters found a problem in my logfile this evening and corrected it, so you should see a marked improvement in access this evening.

UPDATE: Please note that I am not reluctant to post material from my source or another one that I can reasonably verify. The source from which my material has come wants to ensure his/her own safety at the moment from exposure and legal action, which I find reasonable. Hopefully, more material will come soon.

In the meantime, Aaron at Free Will got notes from a Quebec reader regarding Brault's testimony from last Thursday. It's more detailed but a bit more difficult to follow, but our two accounts appear to match up pretty well.

Canada's AG To Take On Bloggers

In an odd display of twisted priorities, Canada's Attorney General may start investigating the Canadian blogosphere to find bloggers who have linked back to CQ and broken the publication ban:

CANADA'S attorney general is probing possible breaches of a publication ban set up to protect explosive testimony at the AdScam inquiry. Justice spokesman Patrick Charette said federal lawyers are looking into the Internet sites reproducing excerpts of Montreal ad exec Jean Brault's testimony and providing a link to a U.S. blog featuring more extensive coverage of the hearing.

"We have to decide what the best course of action is," Charette said, adding federal lawyers could charge Canadian bloggers and website owners with contempt of court or suggest AdScam Justice John Gomery issue warning letters.

So instead of chasing down felons or prosecuting violent criminals, or perhaps investigating government corruption, the AG intends to start delivering contempt citations ... or even sillier, warning letters. For what? Writing about testimony to which their politicians have complete access and the media can watch but not report.

Don't get me wrong; American AGs often have their own screwed-up priorities, too. It just seems to me that prosecuting Canadian bloggers for creating a hyperlink to my site realistically ranks rather low on the threat level for most Canadians. However, perhaps the chilling effect on Canadian bloggers from this government intimidation should be taken as an ominous sign about the future of free speech in Canada by all of its citizens.

UPDATE: People keep asking me if I worry about the Canadian government cracking down on my blog. Not with these guys on my side, I don't...

G&M Shows Why Publication Ban Is A Farce

Jane Taber reports in this morning's edition of the Globe and Mail on a second interview I gave her yesterday, when I had a moment and my voice could handle it. It's meant to give Canadian readers some background on me personally, and Taber does a fine job of presenting that information. However, more importantly -- perhaps for American readers -- it explains one of the reasons I found the publication ban so ridiculous.

One of my commenters last night asked why Americans should be so offended by a publication ban, considering that grand jury testimony is often kept secret here. However, grand jury testimony is truly held in camera, meaning closed off to the public. As Taber reports, that's hardly the case with the Gomery Inquiry:

His contact could be anyone as the commission hearings are open to the public. Indeed, the Brault testimony is an open secret in political Ottawa. Ask any political staffer or MP and they seem to know some, if not all, of the details of the testimony. The television feed from the commission can be picked up in some Ottawa newsrooms, and other information is being passed through e-mails, transcripts and phone calls.

Political leaders are being kept abreast of the story, with the exception of Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe who asked his staff not to tell him anything for fear he will divulge information and run afoul of the ban.

Last week, the NDP dispatched their man, Pierre Ducasse, to the hearings when the publication ban was imposed. He reports the testimony back to the senior staff. Party leader Jack Layton, however, is briefed only on the "gist" of the information, his spokesman, Karl Bélanger, says. Again, it is to ensure that he doesn't let details slip.

In other words, every politician has access to the testimony, and even most reporters can get the transcript or at least hear it as the witnesses reveal their secrets. The only people whom the publication ban affects are the Canadian voters who elected these people and whose money got siphoned off. It has no analogy to grand juries whatsoever.

Others have pointed out that Justice Gomery wanted to keep the information private to keep the testimony from souring a jury pool for Jean Brault, Chuck Guité, and Paul Coffin. This sells Canadian citizens short, ethically and intellectually, and unfortunately this attitude exists in courtrooms south of the border as well. Jury selection these days apparently means finding twelve people who never read newspapers, books, or watch the news on television, and then putting someone's life into their hands. It's rubbish. Jurors take the job seriously enough that they can determine the validity of the evidence presented in court -- as opposed to the often-inaccurate information presented in the media -- and render a decision based on meeting a threshold based on reasonable doubt. When lawyers empanel the twelve most ignorant people they can find, we wind up with juries like the OJ Simpson jury: people who get manipulated by lawyers with sing-song slogans ... which is probably exactly what the lawyers on both sides wanted in the first place.

In order for a citizenry to remain at liberty, they have to know what their government is doing, and the press needs to report it without fear of government reprisal. The notion that Brault's rights had to be protected over the rights of all Canadian citizens is not only ludicrous but a false choice at its heart.

UPDATE and BUMP: Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for all his links and supportive commentary at Instapundit. I just want to remind everyone to be a bit patient with load times today, due to the heavy interest in this material. If you want to read through all of my Adscam posts, click on this category link.

Hardball In Ukraine

It looks like President Bush has few reservations about playing hardball with Vladimir Putin in Eastern Europe. This morning, Bush endorsed a Ukrainian bid to join NATO as long as internal conditions met the prerequisites, a move that cannot have been welcomed by Putin:

The United States supports expanding NATO to include Ukraine, a former Soviet republic now trying to loosen historic ties to Russia, but membership in the Western alliance is not guaranteed, President Bush said Monday.

"There is a way forward in order to become a partner of the United States and other nations in NATO," Bush said during a joint press conference with Viktor Yushchenko, the populist politician whose Orange Revolution forced out Ukraine's pro-Russian government last year.

"It's not a given. In other words, there are things that the Ukrainian government must do," Bush said.

No one doubts that cleaning up Ukrainian corruption serves everyone's interests now, except for the remnants of the Kuchma regime and their allies in the Kremlin that tried to keep them in power. Putin feared that the loss of influence in Ukraine would follow that of Georgia's escape from the Kremlin's orbit and put Europeans on Russia's doorstep -- a frightening thought for a man whose increasing autocracy will be threatened by Western democracy on his borders. The prospect of just this scenario is what forced Putin into openly backing Viktor Yanukovych in his losing bid to retain power for the Kuchma faction in Ukraine.

Bush had remained noncommittal about Ukraine's position with NATO until now, and even this endorsement comes as a surprise. It shows once again that Bush does not fear bold moves, and that despite Yushchenko's retreat from Iraq, Bush holds the expansion of popular democracy as a higher goal than momentary geopolitics. As long as Putin appears to descend into strongman rule, Bush is prepared to apply counterpressure to inspire Russians to return to democratic rule.

Pulitzer Award For Photography A Disgrace

Michelle Malkin alerts her readers to the disgrace of the Pulitzer committee awarding the AP it highest honor for what amounted to staged photographs of the execution of a brave Iraqi election worker:

Via LGF's readers, we are reminded that the Belmont Club first raised troubling questions in December 2004 (here and here and here) about how exactly the AP photographer arrived at the scene.

Also wondering at the time about the AP's relationship with the pictured terrorists and the related media ethics issues/disclosure obligations involved were Power Line and Roger L. Simon (also here). See also Mudville Gazette and Joe Katzman for background.

A key post from John Hinderaker at Power Line on Dec. 25 sums up the outrage and highlights the AP's admission that its photographer was "tipped off" and had a relationship with the terrorists:

[snip]

Salon printed a defense of the AP (and an attack on conservative bloggers) that included this anonymous comment from an AP spokesman:

A source at the Associated Press knowledgeable about the events covered in Baghdad on Sunday told Salon that accusations that the photographer was aware of the militants' plans are "ridiculous." The photographer, whose identity the AP is withholding due to safety concerns, was likely "tipped off to a demonstration that was supposed to take place on Haifa Street," said the AP source, who was not at liberty to comment by name. But the photographer "definitely would not have had foreknowledge" of a violent event like an execution, the source said.

So the AP admitted that its photographer was "tipped off" by the terrorists. The only quibble asserted by the AP was that the photographer expected only a "demonstration," not a murder. So the terrorists wanted to be photographed carrying out the murder, to sow more terror in Iraq and to demoralize American voters. That's why they tipped off the photographer, and that's why they dragged the two election workers from their car, so they could be shot in front of the AP's obliging camera. And the AP was happy to cooperate with the terrorists in all respects. We'd like to ask some more questions of the photographer, of course, but that's impossible since the AP won't identify him because of "safety concerns." Really? Who would endanger his safety? The terrorists? They could have shot him on Sunday if they were unhappy about having their picture taken. But they weren't, which is why they "tipped off" the photographer...

Pulitzer has just endorsed the encouragement of terrorists to kill people fighting for their freedom in order to get reeeeeeally kewl pictures to sell for lots of money. Asking the AP to be ashamed of themselves for having the ethics of hyenas is too much to ask. However, one expects the Pulitzer committee to hold itself and its prestigious awards in higher regard than the exchange of innocent lives for pocket change. What a disappointment.

Putin To Redraw Russian Map To Consolidate Power

The Guardian (UK) reports today that Vladimir Putin's chief of staff has proposed the redrawing of Russia's map to eliminate the existing regions in place of larger and less numerous "super-regions". Such a move would reduce the number of regional governors from 89 to significantly fewer, supposedly to retain Russia's "territorial integrity":

President Vladimir Putin's chief of staff warned yesterday that Russia could break up into several different countries and proposed the creation of "super-regions" to be headed by Kremlin appointees.

Dmitri Medvedev said in a rare interview that, unless the political and business elites work together, "Russia could disappear as a united country".

The warning over Russia's territorial integrity was interpreted by analysts as an attempt to shore up support within Russia's elite for the Putin administration as a battle rages over who will head the Kremlin after Mr Putin's second term ends in 2008.

Mr Medvedev told the magazine Expert: "Empires disappeared from maps when elites lost the ideas that united them and entered into mortal combat. The disintegration of the Soviet Union would look like a party in a nursery school."

He said the Kremlin was considering a plan under which Russia's 89 regions may be merged into several "super-regions". He said this could be "a way of developing the federation within the existing constitution".

Putin has already worried Western observers by changing regional governors from popularly-elected officials to political appointments of the presidency. Putin apparently feels that eighty-nine governors still represents too many people with too much autonomy and wants to reduce the number, as well as push the Russian voters farther from the center of power. Such a move would also likely transform the nature of the regions, culturally and politically. If the Kremlin redraws the regions, expect to see it done in a manner that supports Putin and his entourage.

Putin's second term comes to an end in 2008, plenty of time for him to continue consolidating his power base and eventually overwhelm the Duma. His cronies want him to run for a third term, either as President or more likely as Prime Minister after transforming Russia into a parliamentary republic. If Putin can gerrymander the regions and rely on a small cadre of regional governors to carry his water politically, the second option could keep Putin in power for years to come.

This Should Not Be John Paul II's Legacy In Asia

The Vatican may cut ties with Taiwan and establish diplomatic relations with mainland China, according to the bishop of Hong Kong:

The Vatican is reluctantly ready to cut ties with Taiwan and recognize China if Beijing can guarantee religious freedom, the head of the Hong Kong Roman Catholic diocese said on Tuesday.

But a top Vatican diplomat denied any change to its position and said it did not expect any movement until after the election of a successor to Pope John Paul, who died on Saturday.

Speaking to Reuters, Bishop Joseph Zen played down media reports quoting him as saying that the Holy See was "thinking of giving up" Taiwan, which China's communist rulers have treated as a breakaway province since winning the civil war in 1949.

Beijing severed relations with the Holy See in the 1950s after expelling foreign clergy. Believers today must attend state-sanctioned churches which pledge loyalty to Beijing, although many secretly acknowledge the Pope's authority.

"If the Chinese government is willing to grant real freedom to the church in mainland China, then the Vatican would reluctantly be willing to give up its diplomatic relations with Taiwan," Zen said.

I cannot think of a worse legacy for the end of the JPII era than to knuckle under to Communist China -- a country that has persecuted Catholics who remained loyal to the Vatican for decades and who will likely still not allow them true religious freedom under any circumstances. It's more appalling than dumping a democratic autonomous state like Taiwan in order to coddle up to dictators like the Chinese politburo. Perhaps that argument can be made for the United States, as China presents a formidable military risk and engagement serves a greater good of keeping the hemisphere safe from war. However, the Vatican supposedly exists as the guardian of Truth on Earth -- and the US still stands by its commitment to protect Taiwan from Chinese attack.

One suspects that John Paul II had little to do with this notion of kissing the feet of Hu Jintao, and that this scheme may have percolated at the lower levels of the Vatican while the Pope's health declined precipitously over the past few weeks. May we pray that the new Pope have the strength and moral courage to keep their connection to Taiwan and force the Chinese to confront their harsh treatment Christians in general and Catholics specifically.

Adscam: Brault Testimony Continues

This installment of the testimony of Jean Brault at the Gomery Commission comes from Friday and follows the first installment. Today;s testimony is still being rebuilt from notes and may not be ready until tomorrow. Again, I want to caution people that this is a single source of information, although I did receive independent confirmation about the first installment from two separate sources. Bear in mind that the witness has not yet been cross-examined as well.

The Martin Connections

So far, Jean Brault has testified that in addition to the roughly $250,000 (US) his company legitimately gave to the Liberal Party, they made almost $250,000 in under the table contributions (cash donations, or donations funneled through employees or other companies), and put party workers on the payroll for an in-kind contribution value of about $200,000. Most of Brault’s testimony seems to implicate the circles around Jean Chrétien and Alfonso Gagliano – who are all persona non grata in the “new” Liberal administration of Paul Martin - but there seem to be few direct links to the new regime.

However, Brault's testimony does appear to indicate that those links do exist.

Brault was invited to join a consultative committee for Rogers Cantel – a Canadian mobile phone company, chaired by former Liberal cabinet minister and key Martin ally Francis Fox. (Fox later served as Martin’s Principal Secretary when Martin became Prime Minister). At one of the Cantel lunches, another former Liberal minister and Martin organizer Jacques Olivier told Brault that he should “Stick to Corriveau. He will open doors for you.” (Olivier was referring to key Chrétien ally Jacques Corriveau, who Brault brought in as a subcontractor on advertising contracts.) This shows that two of Martin’s key Quebec organizers knew what was happening with government contracting and sponsorships.

Another connection is through Liberal organizer – and former assistant to Fox – Yvon Desrochers. When Brault was asked about direct political interference in the awarding of sponsorships, he mentioned that Desrochers and Corriveau pushed hard for approval of federal money for the renovation of the Corona Theatre in the riding of Liberal cabinet minister Lucienne Robillard (who still sits in Paul Martin’s cabinet as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs), even though there were indications of construction problems. The person responsible for transferring the funds was told to “cut the check and don’t ask questions.”

Close ties link Fox, Olivier, Desrochers, Martin fundraiser and former hockey star Serge Savard, and another one of the Adscam firms – Claude Boulay’s Groupe Everest – and all are connected with the Martin, not Chrétien, wing of the Liberal Party in Quebec. (Desrochers later committed suicide after the collapse of the Montreal International Aquatic Games, in which millions of dollars went missing.)

Brault testified to other links to people identified with the Martin regime. Among the people Brault put on his payroll (while in fact working for the Liberals) were Georges Farrah – who later served as a Parliamentary Secretary under Paul Martin – and John Welch – who is now Chief of Staff to Martin’s current Heritage Minister, Liza Frulla. (He was urged to hire Welch by Denis Paradis, a Liberal MP who also served as one of Martin’s Parliamentary Secretary.)

Brault said that Gagliano crony Joe Morselli told him he could “solve potential problems” and “talk to Denis” – meaning Liberal cabinet minister Denis Coderre, who also served under Martin.

So links have emerged in Brault’s testimony to many of the people that Martin kept on as ministers or Parliamentary secretaries – even though Martin assured Canadians that he had thoroughly questioned all of his ministers and ensured that none of them had any involvement in the Adscam controversy.

If Brault’s testimony holds up, the reputations of Chrétien, Gagliano, and their teams will be shredded. But it looks like the reputations of Paul Martin’s Ministers, MPs, and organizers are going to be pretty tattered by the end of this as well.

CQ Media Notes (Updated!)

Despite having a ruined voice thanks to a lingering bout of laryngitis, I spent most of my work breaks juggling telephone interviews with Canadian media outlets. For the most part, they wanted to know why I broke the publication ban. I told them I don't believe in restricting free speech, either in Canada or in the US or anywhere else, and if a government has corruption problems, making them a secret hardly helps clean it up.

For CQ readers in Vancouver, I will appear on CBC's television news program this evening, in my very first TV appearance. Bear in mind that I look like hell today and sound worse, so be kind in your judgment. I do not know whether CBC will post the video to their website, but hopefully at some point we'll get a look at it.

Lastly, I understand that comments have stopped functioning, which may either be a hosting problem or a Typekey problem. My service is checking their side to see if the problem is on the server. I'll lok forward to getting comments back on line shortly, and of course, I apologize for the inconvenience.

UPDATE: Comments should be fixed now! However, due to the extremely high traffic coming through the server, the comments program has to be "killed" if you take longer than 20 seconds or so to type it in. One way of getting around this is to type your comments in Notepad first, then simply cut and paste them into the Comments box. HM is trying their best to keep all services running while the load is so high...

Adscam Information Grows

I expect to have more information today on the Adscam testimony, as well as more background information on why this matters to both Canadians and Americans. That may come later in the day, probably in the early evening. In the meantime, if you have found this site and are looking for the original post, you can find it here. Also, I've created a new subcategory for Canada, which will have all of the updates on this story. Bookmark it and check back often.

Winds of Change has a great post on the scandal. Be sure to read it. Don't forget Small Dead Animals, which has a lot of background on Adscam.

My web hosting service, Hosting Matters, has done an excellent job handling the huge boost in traffic coming from CQ's new Canadian readers. I hope if you experience any slow loading or error messages that you remain patient. They know that traffic will go up even farther today and are doing their best to "clear the decks" for you. If you are looking for a hosting service that gives great support and proactively watches your back -- and charges very reasonable fees -- then definitely check out Hosting Matters. Thank you for your patience!

Islamofascists Disenchanted With Arab TV Networks?

Islamofascist groups like al-Qaeda and Tawid and Jihad have used Arabian satellite TV networks as a propaganda arm for their terrorist causes. Terrorists routinely select stations like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya to publicize their videotaped butchery or their exhortations to the faithful. However, the Lebanon Daily Star reports that the Islamists may no longer be enamored of these media outlets after their coverage of Pope John Paul II's death:

[R]adical Islamists, who advocate the expulsion of non-Muslims from Islamic countries, have been using Islamist Web sites to vent their anger at Arab television stations for according the pope such importance.

One such user lashed out at Al-Jazeera, saying viewers were "annoyed" with extensive reports eulogizing the pope, who the user described as an "old tyrant."

"What is mortifying is that this hooligan channel pretends [to defend] Islam," added the user, who wrote under the name Muhib al-Salihine on the Islamic News Network, a site often used by Islamist militants operating in Iraq.

"What is more humiliating - I think that it was Al-Arabiya channel - is that the imam of a mosque ... praised the memory [of the pope]," said Seri Eddine le Libyen on the same site.

"I have started to hate Al-Jazeera for the multiplicity of information on the grieving" for the pope, said another user.

What a shame! Do you mean to tell us that the Islamists oppose free speech and a free press? The two news agencies should consider this reaction when the nutcases try to exploit them in the future to promote their radical brand of fascism. Helping these people gain power will prove completely self-defeating for Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, and perhaps this reaction will serve as a mild wake-up call for their manegement.

John Bolton Gets Petitions Of Support

John Bolton received public support for his nomination as the American ambassador to the UN, with 64 former defense strategists and arms-control specialists signing an open letter to Senator Richard Lugar. Led by luminaries such as Caspar Weinberger, James Woolsey, and Frank Gaffney, they argue that the 62 Bolton critics who sent a letter opposing his nomination have other motives in mind:

Caspar W. Weinberger, a former secretary of defense, R. James Woolsey, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and 64 other retired arms control specialists and diplomats are lined up in support of John R. Bolton, whose nomination to be the American ambassador to the United Nations has stirred some opposition.

In a letter planned for delivery on Monday to Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Indiana Republican who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, other committee members and Congressional leaders, they said the attack on Mr. Bolton was really an attack on President Bush's policies. ...

Mr. Bolton's supporters said his stance "reflects a clear-eyed necessity of the real limits" of accords with other nations that demand one-sided terms from the United States. The supporters included Max M. Kampelman and Edward L. Rowny, arms control negotiators in the Reagan administration. Their campaign was organized by Frank J. Gaffney Jr., a Pentagon official in the Reagan administration.

Gaffney and his allies have it right. The United Nations has become a cesspool of corruption and incompetence, and the last thing we should do is to send someone who gives the impression that the US will "make nice" with current management. We fund 25% of the UN and it's high time that we start demanding some accountability for that money. Milquetoasts like Madeline Albright and Bill Richardson would instead dance with Kofi Annan (literally, in Albright's case) just to make the world feel slightly less anti-American for a brief moment. In the meantime, UN aid programs would continue to steal money from the mouths of the hungry and stuff it into the pockets of UN bureaucrats and tyrants. UN troops would continue raping and pillaging the people they supposedly are tasked to protect.

The United Nations is a disgrace. The US should not send someone to Turtle Bay that would make the current corrupt and incompetent regime comfortable. We need to make them as uncomfortable as possible. John Bolton will not shrink from that task, and he will demand that any UN-negotiated treaties and sanctions carry verification and substantial penalties for failure. Had the UN not transformed itself into the League of Nations for the past fourteen years and allowed the permanent members of the Security Council to be bought off with Iraqi oil futures, then Bolton's nomination would not be necessary. The UN will get the US ambassador it has plainly earned.

The Long-Distance Kyrgyz Resignation

Askar Akayev, the former president of Kyrgyzstan, accepted reality after being deposed last month and formally resigned his position. Akayev had to meet a Kyrgyz delegation at the embassy in Moscow as he has been declared persona non grata in his homeland:

Kyrgyzstan's deposed President Askar Akayev formally resigned on Monday allowing the Central Asian state's new rulers to consolidate their grip on power seized in last month's coup and prepare for a new election.

The veteran leader formally stepped down in a ceremony at the Kyrgyz embassy in the Russian capital, where he had fled after the coup on March 24.

"Askar Akayev has already signed the (resignation) statement," Bermet Bukasheva, member of a Kyrgyz delegation dispatched to Moscow to negotiate with the ousted leader, said in comments shown on Russian television.

After a confusing two weeks where two Kyrgyz parliaments struggled for control and the interim security chief threatened to arrest the people who freed him from prison, Akayev's resignation eases the political tensions immensely for interim president Kurmanbek Bakiev. It allows the new parliament constitutional standing to place Bakiev in charge, if retroactively, until new presidential elections can be held in three months. Bakiev has already announced his candidacy, while Felix Kulov, the more popular opposition candidate who now heads the security forces, has yet to decide.

Akayev asked for his country's forgiveness for any past "mistakes" he may have made. Making the request from the safety of Moscow probably suits the circumstances for Akayev. I doubt he'll get the chance to return to Kyrgyzstan soon, if ever, unless he returns in Kulov's custody.

Canadians: Linking To CQ May Be Bad For Your Freedom

After CTV named Captain's Quarters on their news program last night, the site got swarmed with tens of thousands of visitors, leading to some slower response times (sorry!) and a "magnitude" increase of traffic for blogs who I've linked, especially on this story. However, if you've linked your blog to CQ and you live six or seven hours north of me, you may receive a summons from your government, according to this report from the London Free Press this morning:

A U.S. website has breached the publication ban protecting a Montreal ad executive's explosive and damning testimony at the federal sponsorship inquiry. The U.S. blogger riled the Gomery commission during the weekend by posting extracts of testimony given in secret Thursday by Jean Brault.

The American blog, being promoted by an all-news Canadian website, boasts "Canada's Corruption Scandal Breaks Wide Open" and promises more to come. The owner of the Canadian website refused to comment yesterday.

Inquiry official Francois Perreault voiced shock at the publication ban breach, and said the commission co-counsel Bernard Roy and Justice John Gomery will decide today whether to charge the Canadian website owner with contempt of court.

"We never thought someone would violate the publication ban," Perreault said. "Maybe we were more confident than we should have been."

The Canadian website in question is Nealenews.com, which linked to my post on Saturday night or early Sunday morning. It only provided a link back to my site; it carried none of the testimony itself. In fact, it's still headlining a link to CQ despite the threat of legal action.

In an age of instant communications and greater freedom of the press, one would think that this kind of publication ban would obviously prove futile, especially when dealing with the kind of corruption that the Gomery Commission is investigating. However, if Perreault is to be believed, no one even considered the notion that someone might talk. Either M. Perreault is hopelessly naive, or he gets the Captain Louis Renault award for being shocked, shocked that free speech goes on in a democracy.

However, despite the publication of the material in an American blog and its review by thousands of Canadians, the Gomery Commission insists that the information is not public. Perreault warns Canadians that any link to CQ or even a mention of the blog name in any Canadian publication could lead to prosecution:

Perreault warned that even if Brault's testimony has been outed by a U.S. website, it doesn't mean it's now public information.

"Anyone who takes that information and diffuses it is liable to be charged with contempt of court," Perreault said.

"Anybody who reproduces it is at risk."

Well, you've been warned, my Canadian neighbors.

UPDATE: The Globe and Mail interviewed me yesterday, and published this Jane Taber article:

The explosive testimony given out of the public eye last week at the Gomery commission began appearing on websites yesterday, capping a weekend of frenzied rumours about snap elections and covert political meetings in Ottawa.

Conservative deputy leader Peter MacKay even suggested yesterday that the testimony, which is under a publication ban, could lead to criminal charges against senior Liberals. ...

The publication ban does not restrict Americans from publishing or broadcasting the details of the in camera hearings. Still, the blogger joked that he isn't planning any vacations soon to Canada.

"It's an interesting story. It's fascinating," he said. "First off, I think it's a terrible thing that you guys can't publish this. This is the type of thing that a free press exists for is to hold their government accountable. ..... It should be you guys reporting this."

The fact that the testimony is now circulating on the Internet and by word of mouth calls into question the effectiveness of the publication ban, Mr. MacKay said. ... Mr. MacKay said his party is considering whether it should appear before the inquiry to fight the ban.

Mr. Duceppe [Bloc Quebecois] wouldn't say whether the Bloc will seek the lifting of the publication ban.

"I want to talk to our lawyers first, to see the implications of what's happening in the United States," he said, referring to the Internet blog.

Said Mr. MacKay: "There is no question that if it is in fact now being circulated and is out publicly in the States or elsewhere, that this sole purpose of having the ban in place has just evaporated. There is no point. So once somebody has violated the ban there is no purpose in having it there."

Taber reports that McKay plans on challenging Prime Minister Paul Martin in Parliament today to answer for the information that has already arisen from the Brault testimony. It could be an interesting day in Ottawa.

Liberals To Request Standing At Gomery Commission For Cross-Examination

In a late update to the Adscam story, the Canadian Liberal Party will request standing at the Gomery Commission tomorrow in order to cross-examine Jean Brault. This news has not yet been published in any Canadian newspaper, but I understand that it has been broadcast on CTV. This may be a result of the Brault testimony being made public here at CQ, but as soon as I get some better detail on the request and what it might mean for the investigation, I'll update this post.

UPDATE: Here's a CTV report on the release. It came out prior to their lawyers approving the mention of CQ in relation to the story. Believe it or not, Canadian news sources could wind up committing a crime just by linking to my blog now:

Some of the so-called explosive testimony from the Gomery Inquiry that Canadians aren't supposed to see has found its way onto U.S. political weblogs.

On a U.S. weblog, the anonymous author said this about his source: "For obvious reasons, I cannot reveal this person's name or position, but this person is in a position to have the information. Bear in mind that this comes from a single source, so while I have confidence in the information, you should consider the sourcing carefully."

The testimony of some witnesses has been blocked from publication by Justice John Gomery in an attempt to protect their rights to a fair trial. ...

Even with the ban, as more and more opposition MPs are becoming aware of the testimony, what they are hearing has some thinking it could be enough to bring down the Liberal government.

"Members of Parliament say this dramatic testimony goes to the heart of the way the Liberal Party machine operated in Quebec under Jean Chretien and his Quebec lieutenant, Alfonso Gagliano," Fife said.

On CTV's Question Period, NDP Leader Jack Layton said Sunday the revelations are damning.

"There certainly seems to be an atmosphere of real disturbance because we've been waiting for Liberal corruption to be exposed, and perhaps we're on the threshold of seeing the dimensions of it."

Perhaps the MPs are on the verge of seeing the dimensions, but Justice Gomery apparently doesn't trust the Canadian voters to see it for themselves.

Canadian Visitors Find CQ

I spent most of the day offline, as today was my birthday and I'm still trying to shake off the effects of the flu or a nasty cold (not sure which). I spoke with a couple of Canadian reporters regarding the Brault testimony, and I also worked on another source which confirmed the overall accuracy of my original source for the material.

I also got a note from CTV News that their lawyers cleared them to mention Captain's Quarters on their evening news, which started at 10 pm ET. Since then, traffic has tripled this evening, so if you're dropping by the blog for the first time, welcome aboard.

More information should be forthcoming regarding the embargoed testimony either tomorrow night or Tuesday. I plan on staying with the story regardless of whether the ban stays in place. Hopefully, the publication here will convince Judge Gomery to do what should have been done in the first place: allow for Canadian reporters to keep Canadians informed of what their government officials have done with their money.

Adscam Trial Delay May End Publication Ban

Canada's Sponsorship Program scandal, called Adscam north of the border, may result in snap elections. At first, this was thought to support the Liberal Party, the undeniable if temporary beneficiary of Judge Gomery's publication ban on key testimony at the Adscam hearings, and for good reason. However, lawyers for Jean Brault now want to delay his upcoming May trial to the fall -- and since the proximity of Brault's trial to his Gomery testimony caused Gomery to impose the ban, a significant delay might force Gomery to lift it. If so, the Liberals could face an enraged Canadian electorate much sooner than planned:

Explosive new testimony at the Gomery commission has created a buzz in Ottawa that the opposition could force a quick election on a Liberal government damaged by the sponsorship scandal. ...

Charged on six counts relating to the way his agency handled five federal contracts, Mr. Brault was slated to have a jury trial beginning on May 2.

Yesterday, however, appearing at a prehearing conference, his lawyer, Harvey Yarosky, told Quebec Superior Court Justice Lise Côté that his legal team was so bogged down by the inquiry that it needs a trial deferment.

Judge Côté said she will announce on Wednesday morning whether the trial will be rescheduled.

The prosecution opposed the request, saying that delaying the trial for four months could lead to the end of the publication ban on Mr. Brault's current testimony at the Gomery inquest.

Crown attorney Jacques Dagenais argued that a postponement would void a key reason Judge Gomery imposed a temporary blackout at his inquiry: the proximity of Mr. Brault's testimony to a trial scheduled for May 2.

Of course, the Liberals would prefer that both the ban and the deferment stay in effect, giving them several months before Brault's explosive testimony can be used in public. That could create a window for them to hold an election and solidify their grip on power in order to withstand the political shockwaves once the record opens on Brault. Any other combination, however, means that the testimony comes out into the open before the Liberals can hold a self-preserving election, unless they can pull one off in April.

Besides, the point may be mostly moot. We published an account of Brault's testimony yesterday and will continue to do so if we can get more information from our source(s) in Canada. Others will follow, and the ill-advised publication ban will collapse under its own weight, exposing the wrongdoers in the Canadian government and allowing Canadians to have the information necessary to make an intelligent decision about their leadership.

Iraq Political Deadlock Breaks

The new Iraqi parliament made significant progress this morning towards forming a governing coalition. They selected Hajem al-Hassani, a Sunni, as their new Speaker of Parliament and have settled on all but one vice-presidential position that has been designated to the Sunni as well:

In a ballot, the members of the 275-seat National Assembly voted overwhelmingly to elect Hajem al-Hassani, the current industry minister, as speaker. Hassani, a religious Sunni, is an ally of Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

"We passed the first hurdle," Hassani told reporters afterwards. "The Iraqi people have proven that they can overcome the political crisis that has plagued the country for the last two months."

But he also warned against complacency.

"If we neglect our responsibilities and fail, we will hurt ourselves and the people will replace us with others," he said.

Shi'ite politician Hussain Shahristani and Kurdish lawmaker Arif Tayfor were elected deputy speakers. The Shi'ites and Kurds, who came first and second in the Jan. 30 election, had agreed between them that a member of the once-dominant Sunni Arab minority should be speaker.

As Dick Cheney said a week ago, the Iraqis have been frustrated by the slow progress, but the simple fact is that Iraqis have little experience in multiparty electoral and parliamentary politics. They have not developed the skills necessary to effect the kinds of compromises and coalition-building required to effectively form parliamentary governments. The only way to learn is to actually do it, and it appears that the Iraqi politicians may have worked their way through the first try.

The other positions will fall into place rather quickly, with the posts expected to gain approval in the next session of the National Assembly. A Kurd will be named president, Jalal Talabani, and a Shi'ite will take on the more powerful position of Prime Minister, Ibrahim Jaafari. The Shi'ites and Kurds took care to ensure participation of all three major sects in the new government, even though the Sunni wound up with less than ten percent of the seats in the Assembly due to their boycott. By the end of this week, they should be in a position to determine who will fill the ministry posts, which will then complete the transition to a popularly-elected government for the Iraqi people.