babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Independent Senator Pamela Wallin Takes A SHOT At NDP MP Olivia Chow!
August 4, 2013 - 9:50am
During a speech about the 2011 Federal campaign Wallin said
NDP leader Jack Layton didn't want an election because “his wife [MP Olivia Chow] doesn’t qualify for her parliamentary pension yet,”
Megan Leslie will have a real fight on her hands when Pamela Wallin resigns from the Senate, moves to Halifax, and runs for the Green Party.
Anyway, the 2011 campaign was two years ago. And two years, as we know, is a... oh never mind.
Does anyone need any further demonstration that terrytowel is just a provacateur?
I can see that doesnt really qualify for a suspension- I mean, how do you prove an agenda exclusively concerned with getting people riled up.
But how about people just voluntarily ignoring him? Deny him the satisfation.
Just move the thread to babble banter. I love these threads!
Haven't been tracking the poster, but I can only assume the intent here is to make Wallin look bad. That was my impression - given her own pension woes, and the fact she made the comment while shilling for the guy who got her on the gravy train.
Speaking of which, at the time she was still a Conservative senator, not an independent one... at least according to the source:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/how-duffy-and-wallin-helped...
I'm sort of new here, so if it should be moved to babble banter, then webmaster please move it.
I'm still unaware of some of the rules around here.
Ironically, Wallin, Duffy, and others in the Senate Scandal vortex (including, deliciously, Brazeau) have had the most positive effect on the long-standing NDP policy of abolishing the Senate altogether. May they continue to disgrace the Senate (so long as they pay the price).
Terry Towel
Rabble/Babble is an extremely friendly NDP website, you are not allowed to criticized them in any shape or form.
Why COC who forgot to mention Lib Harb who is also a porker (no insult and slur to pigs intended as they are very intelligent mammals). And who was that ex Lib senator who recently went to jail for scamming taxpayer money?
Libs and Cons "on the pork"!
This thread is lock-close-delete worthy.
SD I sent you a PM. And agree with the lock
Adding my agreement.
Really, you mean criticism of the NDP and everything 'we' do or don't do isn't everday sport here? And in every dispute the moderaters side with the NDPers -really?? Maybe there is something to that multiple reality theory after all.
Meh, no reason to lock. Can always just ignore the more gratuitive Orange Baiting.
OK, I'll bite. Terrytowel, why did you bring this up? If there is a reason, I'd like to know. You didn't explain why you posted this; you just did.
I'm just asking.
Sigh. And here I thought we were gonna have another party thread.
terry posted that, as far as I can tell, because he sees his mission on this board as stopping the NDP and helping restore the federal Liberals as the ONLY alternative to the Conservatives as a national governing party, by any means necessary...even, in this case, by attacking DEAD PEOPLE.
I've asked him(I assume "terry" is male because there is something deeply y-chromosome about his level of relentless obsession with ONE theme)why he is so fixated with doing this, but have received no answer.
I wouldn't expect any more from him in response to your post than that, Arthur. How ya doing, by the way?
If this is all it takes to get people to take the bait then job well done, I say.
This isn't even a real story; it's ancient trash talk by someone who is so toxic she has been kicked out her party. Sound like a reputable source to you?
If that is in fact what he meant by it then it seems to me some here have done far more to perpetuate it by chasing their tails and ringing the alarm bells. Honestly, I had a completely different take on the story, and if everyone had just ignored it some of us would have been none the wiser.
As for witch hunts based on nonsense like this, give me a break. I'd love to hear the argument in favour of banning or closing threads for this while we have a perennial thread devoted to the assertion that the NDP only want people's money. Though honestly, I spent my long weekend doing something a bit more productive.
The other thing is, Wallin didn't actually "take A SHOT" at Olivia Chow(btw terry, why the all-caps on "A SHOT"? It's not as if nobody else has ever dared to say anything critical about Ms. Chow...she's hardly been placed above all comment, for God's sakes)she "took A SHOT" at Jack Layton...a man who's been dead for almost two years, and a man who never conducted himself as though he didn't want an election.
And even if Jack didn't...what possible difference does that make now? And how, in any sense, does Wallin's comment represent anything close to a discrediting moment for Ms. Chow?
You can't just post something like that and then not ever participate again in the thread.
I TOTALLY agree with SW on this one. TerryTowel was simply exposing the irony and hypocracy of the remark Pamela Wallin made while election campaigning at taxpayers' expense. Just when I think Pamela Wallin cannot sink any lower, I find out from this Globe and Mail article exactly the type of trash that spewed from her mouth when she travelled the country campaigning for the Conservatives. I'd like to thank Terry Towel for sharing that with us. The more people are made aware of this the better.
I don't blame Terry for not responding. Sometimes you people can be very cruel.
I shouldn't be responding to this thread, but I will since everyone seems to be interested in my motives.
For the record, I'm not a Liberal NOR am I an dipper. And I'm certainly not a Conservative. I'm an independent (if there is such a term). I've voted NDP in the past (when I lived in Trinty-Spadina I voted for Olvia Chow), I've voted Green (in the last election) and on occasion I've voted Liberal. I've never voted Conserative.
I thought this was a discussion board where freedom of speech was welcome and all points of view were tolerated.
As I said I'm new here. If this is solely an NDP discussion board where we only preach to the converted, then my mistake.
If you support closing my threads, then aren't you just stifling freedom of speech?
You cannot have it both ways where on the one hand you say you support freedom of speech. Then on the other hand you want to shut down threads, because you don't support a particular view-point.
But then again if this is ONLY an NDP love forum, then by all means shut down the thread. But didn't the dippers decry the Conservatives for shutting down debate in Parliment? Again you cannot have it both ways.
To the argument that this is a two-year old quote. Yes it is two-years old, but the National Media DID NOT report on the comment until May 2013. And her senate financials will be revealed any day now. Because her financials will be revealed soon, it does merit discussion. Her critcizing someone for being on tax-payers dime, while she is doing the same thing. Only worse!
Thanks SW and Goggles for the support.
BTW I'm a big Alexa McDonough fan and really hopes she recovers from her illness and one day writes her autobiography.
OK, I expect the flames and insults to come. I probably won't be responding, so fire away.
Ken, did you read the article?
Wallin made the comment during the 2011 election, when Layton had not yet ascended to the realm of saints and angels.
The article, by the way, is not about questioning Mr. Layton's motives with completely unsubstantiated accusations, it is about senators Wallin and Duffy abusing their positions and breaking rules to give the Harperites an unfair advantage. Refering to it as "taking a shot" is completely in order; including that comment speaks to Wallin's character. There's nothing in there trying to verify or refute her claim about Layton because obviously it is just crap designed to get people riled up.
Evidently it works.
Thanks for explaining the context behind your thread title, terrytowel. I hadn't heard about that quote before. I don't really see it as a topic of lengthy discussion, beyond: "Wow, what a hypocritical slimeball that Wallin is!" But I do appreciate your bringing it to our attention.
I guess this means Wallin's not moving to Halifax?
Look, terry, I wasn't trying to stop you from posting...it just looked like you were slamming a dead guy over a quote that, in this day and age, no longer matters. I wasn't aware that you were slamming Wallin.
You just needed to put a little more context in you first post.
Picky picky picky.
Geez babble is just a gem. I thought it was obvious that the opening post was a slam of Wallin, not either Jack or Olivia. Maybe instead of demanding that newbies post concisely our old timers should be more expansive in their reading and not allow their personal defensiveness to over ride the ability to interpret from a generous reading.
This is not an NDP board but I suspect the vast majority of posters have voted for the party. Many of us feel it is our right to point out the parties short comings because it occupies the part of the political spectrum that means a lot to us. Pointing out the NDP's shortcomings often leads to a certain group of people presuming you are Liberal and then treating you as the enemy. It is nothing personal Terry it is just the nature of this community.
Its more than that, krop!
The print and televised media is so blatantly biased against the NDP, what other choice do we have but to use the few available forums for us to show how not every Canadian has been brainwashed into thinking that there are only two political choices in Canada...Conservative or Liberal.
The fact that people come in here and try to cause dissent amongst those who feel there are more than two options only makes me surer and surer than the two old-line parties are becoming more and more scared that Canadians just might be looking at a third option.
@ David Young
So the best way to accomplish that is to get your back up for even the slightest hint of counterrevolution, rather than looking at the issues? Seems to me that is falling into the same team sport bullshit that is the worst of party politics. And the two other big parties have no monopoly on that.
I have been in discussions here where it was argued that the Liberals, not the NDP, took the best line on an issue, and I know enough Liberal party supporters who are on the leading edge of important issues to understand that this divisive way of looking at things is crap. So the NDP faithful can criticize themselves, as can anarchists, communists and other critics from the left, but when anyone who might be a Liberal or Harperite does the same it is time to get out the pitchforks? And the Greens? Well who knows?
Seems to me that circling the wagons, purging anyone who seems to not toe the line, and scaring the shit out of visitors is exactly exactly the kind of paranoia that would have the other parties rubbing their hands with glee. When we are doing that one thing is for sure - our attention is not on making the world a better place. Job well done.
"The print and televised media is so blatantly biased against the NDP, what other choice do we have but to use the few available forums for us to show how not every Canadian has been brainwashed into thinking that there are only two political choices in Canada...Conservative or Liberal."
To be honest, this board has done far more to turn me away from the NDP than the msm. The MSM is owned by the 1%'ers, it makes sense they support the ongoing circus we call government and deny stories that really matter to protect their ill-gotten gains. Things like this thread, people jumping all over someone for a percieved insult and the arrogance. By trying to make it a 'safe place' with no dissention suggests that some ideas may not stand up to scrutiny. Besides, its far more entertaining to watch sillyness get eviscerated!
The problem is the OP was sparse without any context.
To be 100% clear, there's nothing wrong with making a dumb attack on babble. There's a lot of stupidity here, unfortunately. But creating a new thread about old news with TWO lines...
But hey, don't let me stop y'all from spinning in circles.