• Adscam Scandel,  Canada

    Sponsorship programs proposed early

    Jacques Corriveau, former president of Pluri-Design, answers questions about one of his invoices during his testimony at the Gomery commission

    CNews Canada has the following pieces on the events today in the Gomery Inquiry:
    PM, Manley knew of plan, says Guite
    Brault, Guite fraud trial delayed
    Guite earned over $1M from ad firms
    Gagliano aide replaced Guite
    Chretien’s office allegedly awarded deals
    Guite says contracts ‘politically driven’
    Guite’s credibility the key issue
    Chretien’s wife picked souvenir watches
    Tories say new testimony shows Martin linked to sponsorship scandal

    Key players in the federal sponsorship program – including Jacques Corriveau and Jean Lafleur – were apparently discussing sponsorship-like events months before the program officially existed, new evidence at the Gomery inquiry indicates.

    Documents and testimony also suggest then-prime minister Jean Chretien’s office was advised of the potential projects in April 1995.

    A memo sent that month carries a heading labelled “Jacques Corriveau” and refers to the fact that a list of projects had been submitted to Jean Carle, Chretien’s director of operations.

    It’s not clear whether the list, including proposed funding for nine projects totalling $2.3 million, was submitted directly by Corriveau or by somebody else.

    Among the proposed recipients were the Montreal Grand Prix, the Expos baseball club, the Toronto Molson Inday car race, and a number of other oganizations that later figured prominently in the sponsorship program.

    Read the rest here.

  • Adscam Scandel,  Canada

    Canadian Adscam Scandel: Guité Testimony Redacted On Personal Loan (Banned Testimony)

    Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters has discovered redacted testimony regarding Chuck Guité’s testimony at the Gomery Inquiry:

    ….So let’s make sure everyone is clear on this. Brault works through Chuck Guité in order to make sure that he gets as much access to government contracts through the former Liberal minister. He pays Guité hundreds of thousands of dollars, income liable for taxation. Suddenly Guité asks for a loan based on a deal closing that will result in large fees coming from Groupaction so that he can buy a boat without incurring some sort of capital-gains tax, and Brault gives him another $25,000 for a year at below-market interest. (Brault could have made more money opening a savings account.) Not only did Guité skip paying Brault even the interest due on the loan, however, he continued to demand fees from Groupaction far exceeding the amount of the loan.

    Does it occur to anyone that this money not only avoided taxes, but also could easily have avoided scrutiny as a political payoff?

    At any rate, the Canadian taxman will certainly take notice of this money now. It looks like Guité may need to file an amended tax return for 2001 sometime in the next few months.

    There is no reason to ban this testimony or any of it from publication. IT is obvious to Flap that these guys have cut a deal with the prosecutors and are ready to spill the beans on the Liberal Party and Paul Martin.

    They sold their souls to the comapny store and now are willing to sell out their former sugar daddies in order to save their own sorry asses.

    Stay tuned…..it will only get better.

  • Adscam Scandel,  Canada

    Guité details intervention by Martin

    The Globe and Mail has the latest on the Canadian Adscam Scandel and the involvement of Prime Minister Paul Martin:

    When he was still finance minister, Paul Martin was one of three cabinet ministers who intervened to make sure that a Toronto ad agency wouldn’t lose its lucrative government contracts if it was to be sold to a foreign conglomerate, the Gomery inquiry has been told.

    The startling claim linking the prime minister to the Adscam scandal was made at the inquiry headed by Mr. Justice John Gomery by Chuck Guité, the former head of the federal sponsorship program.

    Mr. Guité’s testimony last week was under publication ban until Judge Gomery lifted the embargo Wednesday. A Quebec Superior Court judge temporarily placed the ban back on his testimony but later allowed the details to be published.

    Martin spokesman Scott Reid dismissed the testimony as a third-hand — and false — allegation.

    “The prime minister never involved himself in the contracting process — never involved himself in the determination of contract awards. Period,” Mr. Reid told The Canadian Press

    While troubling, the allegation against Mr. Martin is based on hearsay from someone who has since died and cannot be called before the inquiry.

    However, any allegation involving Mr. Martin will likely be seized on by opposition politicians keener on attacking the current prime minister than talking about the more substantial accusations against his predecessor’s entourage.

    Beyond the allegation involving Mr. Martin, Mr. Guité’s testimony was a sweeping indictment of a federal procurement system which, he said, was geared toward rewarding friends of the party in power with profitable ad contracts….

    Read the rest here.

    CTV has the story here.

    Update #1

    Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarter’s has this.

    The handwriting is on the wall: Paul Martin is DIRTY in Adscam.

    The people of Canada are entitled to vote on his government. Look for the no-confidence vote push next week when government leaders return from Europe.

    A mid-summers night dream(election) = a new Prime Minister.

  • Adscam Scandel,  Canada,  General

    Judge lifts ban on most of Chuck Guite’s sponsorship testimony

    Justice Gomery has released some of the testimony (from a publication ban) of Canadian Adscam Scandel witness and retired bureaucrat Chuck Guite who ran the federal sponsorship program.

    The National Post has the story:

    The judge heading the federal sponsorship inquiry lifted a publication ban Wednesday on most of the testimony given by Chuck Guite, who headed the sponsorship program in the late ’90s.

    But Justice John Gomery ruled that the testimony could not be released until 3:30 p.m. EDT because of a related court case involving Guite and ad man Jean Brault.

    An inquiry for the Gomery commission said Gomery was acting out of respect for Superior Court Justice James Brunton, who was scheduled to make an announcement at the same time about whether he would delay the fraud trial of Guite and Brault.

    In fact, Brunton ruled just before Gomery lifted the publication ban that the trial would be delayed from June 6 until a later date, probably in the fall.

    Gomery’s ruling came the same day that lawyers finished cross-examining Guite at the inquiry, which is investigating alleged improprieties involving millions of dollars of sponsorship money.

    Flap will be reporting /posting as Guite’s testimony becomes available.

    So, please check back.

  • Morons,  Politics

    Lawmaker Seeks to End ‘Sexy’ Cheerleading

    The Texas state House on Tuesday approved a bill to restrict “overtly sexually suggestive” cheerleading to more ladylike performances.

    Flap previously reported this here when the bill was introduced.

    The Las Vegas Sun has the story here:

    After an alternately comic and fiery debate – punctuated by several lawmakers waving pompons – the state House on Tuesday approved a bill to restrict “overtly sexually suggestive” cheerleading to more ladylike performances.

    The bill would give the state education commissioner authority to request that school districts review high school performances.

    “Girls can get out and do all of these overly sexually performances and we applaud them and that’s not right,” said Democratic Rep. Al Edwards, who filed the legislation.

    Edwards argued bawdy performances are a distraction for students resulting in pregnancies, dropouts and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

    Ribald performances are not defined in the bill. “Any adult that’s been involved with sex in their lives, they know it when they see it,” he said.

    The bill passed on a 65-56 vote. It still must be approved by the Senate and signed by Republican Gov. Rick Perry.

    One critic questioned the legislation’s priorities.

    “Have we done anything about stem cell research to help people who are dying and are sick advance their health? No,” said Democratic Rep. Senfronia Thompson. “Have we done anything about the mentally ill, school finance or ethics?”

    The American Civil Liberties Union said the measure was unnecessary because state law already prohibits public lewdness by students on or near a school campus.

    What about the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders?

  • Illegal Immigration,  Politics

    Real ID Act Headed to Passage

    Update: REAL ID Act has passed the House of Representatives. Read about it here.

    House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wis.) praised the inclusion of his REAL ID Act (H.R. 418) legislation in the supplemental conference report filed last night. This final agreement is expected to pass the House Thursday and the Senate next week.

    The U.S. Newswire has the story here:

    The REAL ID contains vital border security provisions approved by the House in February and “strongly support(ed)” by the Bush Administration. These provisions were originally passed by the House last fall in the 9/11 Recommendations Implementations Act (H.R.10) but not included in the final version of the bill enacted in December.

    Chairman Sensenbrenner stated, “This legislation is aimed at preventing another 9/11-type attack by disrupting terrorist travel and bolstering our border security. Giving drivers’ licenses that can be used as identification to anyone, regardless of whether they are here legally or whether we know who they really are, is an open invitation for terrorists and criminals to exploit. The REAL ID will help shut down ‘Smugglers Gulch’ along our border so law-abiding American citizens are better protected from terrorists, drug smugglers, alien gangs, and violent criminals seeking to operate in the U.S. The 9/11 Commission stated it well: ‘It is elemental to border security to know who is coming into the country.'”

    “The REAL ID will also weed out fraudulent asylum applications made by people lying through their teeth. By ferreting out asylum fraud, the conference report strengthens our asylum system so those legitimately fleeing persecution are welcomed here. Finally, the REAL ID includes the common-sense provision that those ineligible to enter the U.S. on terrorism-related grounds should be eligible for deportation on those same grounds,” added Chairman Sensenbrenner.

    The Real ID Act (as included in the Conference Report):

    Strong security standards for the issuance of drivers’ licenses

    — All states must require proof of lawful presence in the U.S. if their drivers’ licenses are to be accepted as a form of identification to a federal official. The conference report clarifies that getting aboard a commercial airplane or entering a federal building or a nuclear power plant are among the official federal purposes. States must comply within 3 years of law’s enactment.

    — The agreement clarifies that states can issue a second tier of drivers’ licenses (approach taken by Tennessee and Utah) that would not be valid for official federal purposes and that do not have to meet the issuance standards. The terms of these cards would be a maximum of one year.

    — Temporary driver’s license issued to a foreign visitor by a state must expire when the visitor’s visa expires, with a maximum term of one year.

    — Does not create a national ID card or a national database. Does compel the states to improve the data security of information that states already hold about their citizens, and requires the states to improve the physical security of the buildings where data is stored.

    Asylum Reform

    — Tightens the asylum system abused by terrorists by allowing immigration judges to determine witness credibility in asylum cases. In assessing witness credibility, requires the trier of fact “(c)onsider() … the totality of the circumstances, and all relevant factors.” With respect to statements, the trier of fact is to “(c)onsider() the circumstances under which the statements were made.” Provides that corroborating evidence is not required if the applicant does not have the evidence and cannot reasonably obtain it.


    Closing the 3-Mile Hole in the fortified U.S./Mexico Border Fence Near San Diego

    — Provides the Secretary of Homeland Security the ability to waive laws necessary to complete border fences and roads to improve national security. Allows for Federal judicial review of Secretary’s actions, but only for constitutional claims such as takings of private property.

    Inadmissability and Deportation of Terrorists

    — Ensures all terrorism-related grounds of inadmissability to the U.S. are grounds for deportation from the U.S. Conference report allows the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive some of the new grounds of inadmissability. Congress must be given periodic updates on who receives waivers.

    Judicial Review of Removal Orders

    — Provides reforms to ensure the prompt removal from U.S. of terrorists and criminal aliens, after the proper judicial review. By restoring judicial review to its former, settled forum, all aliens ordered removed by an immigration judge will be able to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals and then raise constitutional and legal challenges to the circuit court, the second-highest courts in the U.S.

    The Washington Times has the story here.

    National Public Radio says the House will consider the bill today. And in a backhanded way bemoans the Act. The audio link is here.

    The Los Angeles Daily News has the reaction of Southern California Congessional lawmakers here.

    About damn time this ACT passed.

    Can you believe the Democrat controlled California legislature actually passed and then rescinded California Driver’s Licenses for illegal aliens?

  • Health,  Methamphetamine

    Santa Maria Times: Matters of Life or Meth Part 1: Going to Hell and Back

    This is Part One of the award winning series from the Santa Maria Times on the tragedies of Methamphetamine:

    Jaime Applegate’s slide from working mother to desperate junkie was so fast she hardly knew it was happening.

    “I had a family,” she recalled. “For six years I was a pretty decent mom. It just kind of went downhill so fast.”

    Looking back, the 28-year-old Applegate hardly recognizes the person she became while in the grips of methamphetamine. Her journey is not unusual.

    Countless people in the Santa Maria Valley are using meth or struggling to get off it. The drug is cheap, easy to get and widespread, and its effects often are devastating.

    Meth cuts across economic levels and ethnic groups, hitting people from dysfunctional families and those with sitcom-perfect childhoods. No one is immune.

    The high-powered stimulant can be smoked, snorted, injected, stirred into coffee or baked into food and eaten. It’s a high that is less expensive and longer lasting than cocaine; a typical methamphetamine high can last for hours or even all night.

    Applegate had a fairly normal life before she got hooked on meth. She dreamed of going to college and having a career, had friends and a happy marriage. She just liked to have a good time – and sometimes that meant using drugs.

    Applegate thought she could handle methamphetamine. At first it seemed like a fun, social thing to do.

    “When I first started doing it, I took care of my child, and had a pretty happy relationship with my husband, and was able to maintain a job. The feeling wasn’t there like I had to have it, when I first started doing it.”

    But the drug ripped her life apart. The former honors student stole, lied and did things she prefers not to discuss to feed her habit.

    She lost her son, ending up homeless and on the streets, emotionally broken and feeling utterly alone, before she was finally ready to quit. Despite the high personal price Applegate paid for her addiction, it took her a long time to want to quit.

    By the time the police raided a friend’s home where she was crashed for the night, she was almost grateful to surrender and beg for help.

    Applegate sobered up in county jail and began to mend her life.

    Now she spends three days a week at Recovery Point, a drug treatment facility in Santa Maria operated by the nonprofit Good Samaritan Inc. Sanctioned by the court, the Proposition 36 program allows those convicted of a first or second meth possession to swap jail time for treatment.

    Sober and clean today, Applegate’s biggest regret is what her drug use did to the people she loves.

    “The relationships I’ve lost and destroyed because of it. From my brothers and sisters and my mom to my husband and subsequent romantic relationships. My son – that’s probably the biggest (relationship) I’ve screwed up because of drugs.”

    Applegate began drinking and smoking pot at age 12. She picked up a meth habit with her husband, after marrying and having a child at the age of 16.

    The Lompoc native has fond memories of good years of family life in North Dakota with her husband and son. There she didn’t do meth, though she drank and smoked pot.

    “I was so happy to be a mom when I had him. It wasn’t like where I’m 16, I’m having a baby now, and this sucks, I want to pawn him off. I wasn’t one of those kind of moms. I was happy to have him.”

    Applegate snorted crank meth – a less pure version of meth cut with other substances such as talcum powder, laxatives, and baking soda – on and off for a couple of years. She used it for fun after her marriage ended and she moved back to Santa Barbara County. Getting the drug was easy; it seemed everyone she knew used.

    “How do you describe it? It’s fast, and it’s happy, and it’s up. You don’t want to sleep, and everything seems exciting, everything seems good. It seems like you can do so many things at once, which nothing gets done, but you can talk a lot. You feel fast and happy, I guess, in the beginning anyway.”

    Applegate says her habit wasn’t a big deal until she began smoking crystal meth later.

    Users say that crank or “dirty” meth is a different beast than crystal meth, which is more pure and delivers a more potent high. Smoking, too, packs a more intense high than snorting.

    But snorting about $200 a week of crank meth seemed to help her performance at a Goleta call center.

    “It actually seemed to improve the amount of money I made. Talking fast, being on it … you’re kind of just focused on (the work), except for trips to the bathroom to snort more drugs,” she said.

    After the job fell through, Applegate got a new boyfriend whose friends partied hard. She moved in with him in Lompoc and left her son at her former mother-in-law’s most of the time.

    “I would get jobs, but I would quit them within a week,” she said. “I didn’t have enough time to get high in the day, so I would quit jobs.”

    Applegate’s ex-husband came to take their son for the summer, planning to bring him back for school. But by the time he returned, Applegate still had no job, no stable place to live. So the ex kept the son for the school year. The child was 6 at the time.

    “I felt guilty,” she said. “It was awful. It was really awful. And I felt, for lack of better words, like the biggest piece of … on the planet. Cuz I’d raised him. You know? Pretty much by myself.”

    But the ex-husband had a new wife and seemed a reformed family man, so she felt it was for the best.

    “When I was up, and when I was using, and when I was partying, I didn’t have to think about not having him. But in the downtime, yeah,” she said. “Emotionally, I would be just wrecked over it. But not every day.”

    After her son left things got worse. Someone introduced her to crystal meth for the first time. Crystal meth goes through an additional step of purification that makes it more powerful – and more addictive.

    “It was excellent, It was just a world apart from the drugs I’d been snorting. I got a ringing in my ears and my head felt all fuzzy. It was like an actual high.”

    “From then on, I smoked it every day. I smoked crystal meth every day.”

    To pay for the drugs, Applegate stole from the retail business she and her boyfriend had started. He didn’t know she was using.

    “I slept at night, because I didn’t want him to know. I took pills to go to bed at night. I took Valium, Xanax, Soma, other people’s prescription drugs. I bought prescription drugs on the street.

    “I still thought I had it together,” she said.

    On a late-night trip from her drug dealer’s house, Applegate was busted for possession and arrested. She got drug diversion, a treatment alternative for first time drug offenders, but couldn’t follow through with the program, and tested dirty.

    “I wasn’t ready to stop. And my life went to hell.”

    She broke up with the boyfriend and the business closed. She skipped town to avoid prosecution.

    “I packed up my truck and I ran. I moved back to North Dakota to be near my son,” she said. “It was a decision I made when I was high. I drove 2,000 miles in a truck that shouldn’t have went that far, and I ran.”

    Applegate ran out of drugs on the road and felt the weight of losing her son and her messed-up life.

    She got a job and stayed off meth for nine months – though she used cocaine on occasion and drank daily – but returned to Lompoc when friends came to visit bearing meth. Plans fell through and she had nothing and nowhere to go.

    “I was homeless. I started couch-hopping, and staying with various people,” she said. “Some nights I slept on the street. I would use the bar bathroom to bathe myself.”

    “I had to scramble and scrape and lie, and do so many different things that I’m not proud of to get drugs.”

    Finally, Applegate crashed at a friend’s house and it was raided.

    “I woke up and there were policeman there and they asked me who I was and I was just so defeated and so miserable and so beaten, I told them who I was.”

    She cleaned up in county jail and started recovering. She found faith and moved in with her grandmother. Today she says she’d never go back to meth.

    “You start doing it because it’s fun. But once you get into the addiction part of it, you use it to cover up things that are bad in your life. It’s a mask. It’s a cover.”

    “Even now, it’s like, oh my god, I feel … I gave my son away,” Applegate said.

    Today, Applegate’s son is 12, and has been living with his father for six years. But the father just went to prison, so Applegate is bringing him to live with her.

    “It’s awesome. It’s kind of scary. I haven’t had him full time in six years. It’s one of the goals I set for myself when I first started this whole thing last December. I wanted to get my son back. And to try to get a job and be able to function in society.”

    For Applegate, life has begun again.

    “I’ve got just a lot of reasons to stay clean. Everything from the quality of life to the respect I get and the trust people give me. Life just keeps getting better. I wouldn’t trade my worst day clean for my best day using.”

    “I feel more grateful than lucky. It’s a God thing. God had a plan. It’s amazing. I don’t know what more to say about it. It’s totally a chance at a brand-new life. The world’s wide open at this point and I never used to think so. It always seemed so impossible.”

    Methamphetamine is too readily available.

    The Congress of the United States must pass legislation to interdict the flow of precursor chemiclas into the United States.

    The Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration must enforce the existing laws.

    Some of those problems are chronicled here.

  • Adscam Scandel,  Canada

    Paul Martin: I will Go If You Will Go

    Prime Minister Paul Martin tells the national press corps that he would like to attend VE-Day ceremonies in Holland.

    Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has agreed to attend a V-E ceremony Monday for Canadian soldiers if opposition leaders agree to attend with him.

    Read the story here:

    There may be a ceasefire in the battle over an election call.

    Prime Minister Paul Martin has won agreement from all three opposition leaders to attend VE-Day ceremonies in Holland on Monday.

    Martin said he would only go if all of the opposition party leaders go with him, to avoid the possibility of a vote in the Commons that would force an election. The leaders of the Conservatives, NDP and Bloc Quebecois all say they’re prepared to attend under those conditions.

    Martin had originally planned to go to honour Canadian veterans in Holland, but said last week he changed his mind when opposition leaders and MPs began to cancel.

    The numbers in the House of Commons are so close that every vote will count in any move to bring the minority Liberal government down, an attempt the Conservatives have promised to make soon.

    Martin will face an election this year – I suppose timing is everything.

    Frankly, I don’t think it will matter.

    The Canadian people are fed up and will change the government when given an election.