Jumping the shark: an idiom used to describe a misguided attempt at
generating new publicity for something once, but no longer, widely
popular; the attempt serves instead to highlight the irrelevance of what
it intends to promote. Like Pierre Polievre and Charlie Angus' latest WeGhazi brainfart.
. . .
Frustrated by their efforts at revitalizing the most idiotic Canadian ripoff of Hillary Clinton derangement syndrome after Justin Trudeau smothered them with a MyPillow last August, Chuckles the clown and his pet pigeon have now resorted to the ultimate in paranoid-fascist stupidity:
Calling the cops to have the Keeblebooger boys arrested, for not appearing at "jury duty."
While there have been instances in recent years of summons to appear before committees, no private citizen has been imprisoned for refusing since 1913. ... Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre, in a Twitter post on Thursday, said: “I’ve got news for the Kielburgers: you will testify. If not, Parliament can have the Sergeant pay you a visit — and you don’t want that.”
Sit on it, Skippy. The Kookaburras already answered your gross line of questioning at the previous star-chamber inquisition. Why are you still digging this hole to nowhere?
UPDATE March 10th: The brothers will go to the committee, but have retained and will be accompanied by the legal counsel of none other than Stephen Harper's former chief of staff, a sharp guy by the name of Dude Giorno. I mean a sharp dude by the name of Guy Giorno. In this NatPo piece,
he outlines his argument against the arbitrary powers of Parliament to
arrest private citizens for not participating in show trials. So Skippy is going to go up against Herr Harper's own former consigliere. Popcorn, get your popcorn here...
I think I have a pretty good explanation for why he's keeping up this lame courtroom drama well past its best-before date. See, Skippy got himself unceremoniously demoted recently for sucking up all the spotlight, while Eric O'Fool remains a no-name relegated to the D-list just months before an expected election. But it's not like Skippy is the kind of diva who exits the stage quietly. It may even be backfiring on Eric, as he continues to flail and fail miserably at shoring up his disaffected lunatic base, while maintaining a floundering effort to make the Q-Cons more "palatable" to, you know, normal people in the places where the votes and seats actually matter. Places where, in spite of bitter smear campaigns and unexpected headwinds, the Tru Grits are still doing well.
Thing is, it's not like Pigeon Pete is the only one jumping the shark in pursuit of his great white whale. Charlie Dingus is right there to play bad cop to Skippy's... worse cop, or maybe Robert Blake while Skippy plays the role of the parrot. (Speaking of Robert Blake, I wonder whatever happened to that fine-feathered, uh... witness...)
And now the Chazmanian Devil has sunk to a new low by dragging not only Margaret Trudeau but Sophie and even Ella-Grace into his disturbing and obsessive conspiracy theory that accuses Justin of so-called "corruption." You read that right: the "ethics" critic of the party that so self-righteously calls itself the "conscience of parliament" is wasting time and resources during a pandemic, frightening a little girl by calling the police on her dad for no goddamn reason and labeling him a crook.
The WE Day event that Upchuck is vomiting about into the twittersphere and decrying histrionically as "influence peddling" also invited Idris Elba and Lewis Hamilton as guest speakers. (I guess the "conscience of parliament" enjoys tagging successful Black men as accessories to money laundering, or adrenochrome harvesting, or whatever the fuck it is being alleged here.) It was at that event that Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau had contracted COVID about one year ago this month.
And so, for that matter, did Idris Elba.
This is your occasional reminder that the national political bureau chief of the country's so-called paper of record, the one and only (which is one too many) Bobolink Fife, responded to this by uncritically retweeting gossip garbage from a Rupert Murdoch rag, that framed its coverage of the story as Sophie having... caught it from a night out on the town with a tall, dark and handsome Englishman who is not her husband. It spurred on a shit tonne (that's an actual measurement in the Metric system) of disgusting and abjectly racist conspiracy theories about the Trudeaus' marriage and custody of the children. Screenshots of the objectionable hashtag, for posterity.
I'm all for "cancel culture." Let's all cancel the Globe & Mail.
Skippy and Chuckles know exactly what they're winking at here, and who they're feeding with this sham investigation. I remain unconvinced that there is zero chance of Big 'Dris himself being called before this farcical inquisition to testify about his... whereabouts and his... involvement with the WE Charity and (ahem) with Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau. Then Paul Wells, aka @DicklessPW, can rush to his desk at Maclame's for a "revisiting" of the "exposé" into Margaret and the Rolling Stones. You know there's a pizza restaurant somewhere in Ottawa that's going to end up being targeted in this, right? Probably by another friendly sausage handler upset about the Soros sex dungeon at Harrington Lake.
What allows them to get away with this is an archaic principle from the powdered wig era (the old powdered wig era, not the Eighties) called "parliamentary privilege." It gives the legislative body a... shit tonne of power that is just ripe for abuse. The Klutzbrothers rightly called it out in a CBC interview as giving a shield to politicians to hide behind, that enables the possibility of persecution against private citizens. It also gives them a free pass to lie and not be called a liar for it. See, it really doesn't matter whether you like the Kapybaras or not. Don't forget that there was an innocent Jewish couple who owns the speaking engagement agency, who faced death threats when the Cons' deputy dingbat posted their phone number on Facebook. Or that Margaret Trudeau hasn't done a damn thing to deserve any of this and Ella-Grace is twelve years old.
Or that these asinine committee hearings have been weaponized for McCarthy hearings against anyone who may have ever, at any point in their lifetime, been a contributing member of the Liberal party. Like Frank Bayliss and Robert Silver. Anyone could be next, anyone, because that archaic principle holds pretty much that the government of Canada is not really one of, by, and for the people: as it's still, technically, a monarchy, the people remain essentially its subjects. This might be a rare instance where a little bit of American-style rabble-rousing might be welcome. After all, as we're about to find out from Oprah when Meghan and Harry drag the crown and the media for filth, those stuffy old British institutions are so draconian that they even eat their own. (And don't even get me started on the behaviour of the corrupt fourth estate. They killed Harry's mum; now they're after his bride. They won't rest until after Margaret and Sophie have died.)
You know what Martin Niemöller said, when the Tories devolved into Republican-style fascism and the O.G. antifa horseshoe players of the NDP went along with them? "First they came for the Kinkybootstrappers, and I did not speak out because Craig and Mark had a smug smirk... then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me." Or something like that. You get the point.
The lying press in Canada and the opposition attack dogs are behaving like wee WE despots. I'm not convinced it won't backfire on them, though. After all, what was it Napoleon said before his final defeat at Port-a-Potty — er, Waterloo?
Able was I... ere I saw Elba.