Exigenomicon

@nikiashton speech after first ballot in #ndpldr race

After the first ballot, Niki Ashton and her supporters, of which I was one, left the convention floor and regrouped at her campaign room. She got up on a chair and gave a great speech.

The video is about 1G so be patient. Also,

1. I would have uploaded it sooner but I couldn't figure out how to do it through my iPad. 
2. It took four hours to upload.

Fascinating turn of probably unrelated events in #robocon #cdnpoli

The reason I refer to this particular turn of events as 'fascinating' is because it has value as a point of interest but is probably not directly connected to the Robocon scandal. And while there is more than likely a non-nefarious situation at play here, it is still curiouser and curiouser.

I am referring to the mysterious-but-not-likely-robocon-related RackNine employee, Rick McKnight. For a great perspective on the story we once again turn to the dynamic duo of Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor.

This facet of the story has all the elements of a great mystery:

• Postmedia and the Ottawa Citizen cannot find anyone who knows McKnight
• McKnight has 551 Facebook friends
• He's the only North American employee besides the business owner
• His Stanford degree cannot be conclusively corroborated
• He claims to have had a job at a place where the vice president says otherwise
• He's not the Rick McKnight in the Edmonton phone book (old skool investigation)
• He's being shielded from the media by the company lawyer
• His nationality and even his very reality would not be confirmed
• He's friends with prominent Conservatives and conservatives such as Guy Giorno, Andrew Prescott, Dimitri Soudas, Kory Teneycke, and Fred DeLorey

Possible scenarios

Someone is pretending to be Rick McKnight online...

Why?

• Superfluous reasons such as satisfying curiosity and having fun
• Legitimate reasons such as privacy and security
• Dubious reasons such as trolling or infultrating
• Criminal reasons such as fraud and theft

Who is Rick McKnight?

• An avatar for an individual who uses no other online persona for social networking and media
• A fake online persona developed by an individual or group that is administrated as a fake - the administrator also has a legitimate online persona associated with their real person

What does McKnight do online?

• Collects friends on Facebook who don't actually know him
• Writes articles for the RackNine blog - at least one article was published by R. Martinez a year earlier
• Administrates a profile on Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora and possibly other social media sites - on Quora he was active March 13 in answering a CMS question

Questions

Why is he being shielded by the call centre's lawyer? Why is his identity a closely guarded secret? Why would his nationality be in question?

In an interview, when asked how a reporter could get in touch with McKnight, [Meier] said "you don't," and hung up.

Later, he referred queries to his lawyer, R. Justin Matthews, who offered a cryptic reply.

"How does one define a real person?" said Matthews in an email. "Would a web-design employee that chooses to use a different name online (which some people seem to do these days) be considered a real person?"

Matthews said he would not reveal McKnight's identity, and would not confirm that he is a Canadian.

What would connect this to Robocon?

If there is one thing I've learned from all the Robocon stuff it is this: Acting suspiciously tends to rouse suspicion. And to protect the identity of Rick McKnight at these great lengths is certainly suspicious.

But in order to connect this to Robocon, the administrator/perpetrator of Rick McKnight would  have to be a Conservative employee masquerading as an employee of RackNine. That would draw lines between a lot of dots. However, that is speculation and we'll see how it plays out.

Update 6:02 pm CST Tuesday, March 20: Turns out it was innocent all along - or so it appears. I called it. He is using a 'Canadian' pseudonym to be more accessible to clients. Nothing nefarious. On an unrelated note - way to keep your firm in the media spotlight when you should be keeping your firm out of the spotlight.

 

The #robocon Hail Mary has been thrown - turns out it was you and me all along #cdnpoli #canada

Let's quickly review the various persons responsible for Robocon election suppression and fraud:

Michael Sona

Michael Sona was originally fingered as the culprit, the mastermind of the whole affair, the lone gunman with the Liberals in his sights. His name was floated to the media from CPC 'insiders', whatever that means, the day after the scandal broke wide courtesy Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor. It was later determined that it was improbable, implausible, and virtually impossible for one person to carry out even one side of this multi-faceted scandal. And he denies the whole thing as well, which is a bold bluff if it is one.

The Call Centres

The Call Centres were next on the sacrificial block, even though Elections Canada expressedly made it clear they were not on the suspect list. Lawsuits are pending for defamation all over the place because an Elections Canada investigation led to gathering evidence from the Call Centres but not investigating the Call Centres. It may yet prove to be an employee of one of the Call Centres, or a group of employees, but so far the investigation is not focused on the Call Centres themselves (although a separate investigation into one of the Call Centres has been started for something else).

Rogue Operatives

This notion was floated around as if there were a gang named The Rogue Operatives and they were a right-wing, anti-democracy group hell bent on fixing elections and then exposing the election fraud to the world. This one didn't last long. Not only was it contrary to the lone gunman theory put forward the day after the scandal broke, it was as nebulous as the 'war on drugs' and therefore carried little weight.

The Liberals did it to themselves

This was my favourite because it basically insults the Liberals whilst simultaneously forcing the Liberals to defend an absurd position. Of course no one really believes the Liberals called their own supporters pretending to be Conservatives pretending to be Liberals, not even the master debaters who troll this shit along to the media.

Pierre Poutine

Either a clever pseudonym or a cruel joke, Poutine is a tangible suspect in the elections fraud and voter suppression in Guelph and other Ontario ridings. There is a cyber-trail of evidence that points to a mobile registered to Pierre Poutine living on Separatist Street in Quebec. An IP address used for some form of Internet transaction with one of the Call Centres can be linked to the same town in Quebec where the mobile was registered. This person has some explaining to do.

The Hail Mary - It's all a big mistake

But in the midst of all this, for some reason the CPC have decided to throw a Hail Mary and share the blame with regular working and voting Canadians.

From the CBC

Phone calls directing voters to the wrong polling stations in the last federal election could have been mistakes, and people should stop jumping to conclusions, Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro says.

Del Mastro, who has been leading his party's defence in the controversy over live and automated election phone calls, said nobody has come forward to say they didn't vote because they first went to the wrong polling station.

"So where are these people? Where are these people? Where are these people saying that I got the call, I went to the wrong station, and then I didn't vote?" Del Mastro said on CBC's Power & Politics.

"There haven’t been any. No one has stepped forward and said that."

"Some of these things, as I've already indicated, could have well been mistakes. I don't understand why folks jump to these things and run to a conclusion that they have no evidence of."

"Where are these people?"

"Where are these people saying that I got the call, I went to the wrong station, and then I didn't vote?" Del Mastro is trying to make it seem that voter suppression had to work in order for the electorates' concerns to be legitimate . If you weren't actually suppressed, then it was just a reprehensible dirty trick. Get over it. This is why you hate politics, remember?

"There haven't been any"

About 700 people, not zero as intimated in the quote, have come forward with enough veracity for Elections Canada to engage with them further. Apparently Del Mastro is unaware of these legitimate complaints and the investigation for Pierre Poutine that has led to the CPC doorstep.

"Folks jump to these things and run to a conclusion"

Anytime a political party doesn't want you to 'run to a conclusion' is because that conclusion is bad for the party in question. It's that simple. We're running to these conclusions based on the evidence, which is mounting, which the CPC denies exists.

"Some of these things...could have been mistakes"

I agree - some of the misleading calls 'could' have been mistakes. So let's examine who could be mistaken in all of this:

• Elections Canada 'could' have called people and given them incorrect polling station information - implausible but not impossible.
• Call Centre staff 'did' give out incorrect polling station information - were they mistakes? Improbably.
• Voters being caught up in the scandal and being 'mistaken' in whether they received an anoying call or a suppressing call.

Any way you slice it or dice it, these 'honest mistakes' would have been made by working and voting Canadians.

This revelation that it was all a huge coincidental river of mistakes made by a slough of Canadians just like you and me comes mere hours after this article hit the 'net: Elections Canada sifts through Tory database to identify Pierre Poutine. This does not seem like an investigation into an honest mistake. Elections Canada has made a direct link between Pierre Poutine and the CPC and are following that forward.

And furthermore, ignorance of the law is no excuse, so if voters were suppressed then those suppressors must bear the full weight of the law upon their actions.

Conclusion

Del Mastro seems to be shifting the blame, yet again, and this time it rests upon our shoulders. He is suggesting that Canadians are mistaken about their experience, that they weren't suppressed enough to complain, and that they shouldn't jump to conclusions because the conclusions are tightening around the neck of the CPC. He's further suggesting that these 'mistakes' should go unpunished (law and order agenda anyone?)

So to recap, Robocon was perpetrated by:

1. Michael Sona
2. Call Centre staff
3. Rogue operatives
4. The Liberals
5. Pierre Poutine
6. Canadians

The CPC is running out of red herrings to dangle under our noses, and once it has been proven that the NDP, the CBC and environmental 'extremists' had nothing to do with it, there may be only one group left to blame.

 

Repeating Patterns of Dubious Behaviour #cdnpoli

I'd like to deconstruct the behaviour of a certain political party to hopefully show repeating patterns of dubious behaviour, removed from the political stripe and leaning of the party.

Now, these activities were performed by various members of the party, but in the same way that a team is judged by the actions of its players, so are political parties. And while politics may be a part of this narrative, it is only used if context is required. This is all about the way people behave.

Polarization and deflection

Polarization seems to be a pretty constant action. While it is, of course, polarizing, polarization also breeds deflection, in that the polarization becomes the narrative and the issue takes a back seat.

This party has identified its opponents, in the last three months, as:

• Pro-criminal
• Anti-victim
• Anti-military
• Anti-Canadian
• Sympathetic to child pornographers
• Similar to Hitler
• Extremists
• Socialists
• Hacks
• Pro-Putin
• Anti-farmer
• Job-killing

Why do this? What drives this activity? Why deflect attention away from a party's political initiatives? I figured they were really proud of their initiatives, and yet they constantly detract from them by focusing on absurd bombast and polarizing labels. This makes me think they're not proud of their initiatives, or at least they believe most Canadians won't be terribly proud of them.

Let's examine the notion of pride a little further. How can they lambaste their opponents with absurd, binary vitriol? How can they look themselves in the mirror afterwards and say 'I'm perfectly comfortable telling anyone who disagrees with me that they are supporters of child pornographers'.

Where they seem most proud is in Question Period, which is where many of the labels are affixed, since privilege applies and impunity pads the walls. This makes me think they're proud of the party, proud of being elected. They may not be proud of what they say or put forward, but they are proud of themselves for being there.

Hypocrisy

Hypocritical behaviour from an elected group of individuals is always a large pill to swallow, and is definitely a non-partisan issue. No one likes to see anyone in government in a 'do as I say, not as I do' scenario; no one likes to watch the kettle calling the pot black. Here's a few examples:

• Purporting to be 'tough on crime' and hiring criminals to work at the highest levels
• Wanting scandals to go away and yet breathing life into them at every opportunity
• Demanding evidence while denying evidence
• Firing staffers and rehiring those staffers in promoted positions
• Appealing an electoral fraud charge whilst in a legal imbroglio regarding electoral fraud
• Making MPs testify at committee for their staffers and then calling a staffer to testify from a different party
• Denying an investigatory body more powers while that body is investigating the party and the party is claiming 'it has nothing to hide'

Conclusion

 If I worked with people like this, I'd go absolutely bonkers.

 

 

 

Conservative #robocon investigation seems to focus on plausible deniability #cdnpoli

The Robocon Scandal (or Criminal Conspiracy, whichever you prefer) is frothing at the mouth of Parliament these days, as the Conservative are attacked on all sides. Their defense, unlike most communications campaigns, is fragmented, contradictory and implausible. By next week they'll be blaming the Left for inserting false memories in the minds of non-Conservative voters in some sort of Inception scenario. And when they start blaming Canadians for this, you'll know they are on the ropes, so to speak.

But I'd like to focus on their 'investigation' into their 'clean and ethical' campaign, which is the first of many contradictory concepts at play here. And as I hope to show, their investigation seems to centre around the notion of plausible deniability and not actually getting to the bottom of these serious allegations.

The lone gunman/mastermind/zealot/interlocutor

The day after Postmedia broke this story wide open, the Conservatives did two things:

1. Denied all involvement
2. Pinned it all on a Conservative staffer

It seems awfully convenient that the day after the story breaks, the Conservatives conveniently realize that the perpetrator has been working for them all along.

Unfortunately for the party, this staffer has decided that being under the bus is not a tenable position and has denied all involvement.

He's guilty. Wait, he's not guilty? Then I guess no one is guilty. Phew. Case closed.

Anyone following this story now realizes that the alleged systematic voter suppression across the country is not the handiwork of a 23-year-old staffer on Parliament Hill, nor was it ever. This was the first step in creating plausible deniability - the lone wolf mastermind behind the entire conspiracy who was fired resigned.

Flooding the media with confusing messages

This video from CBC Power and Politics is very telling from the perspective that the Conservative MP, Dean Del Mastro, doesn't seem to be able to focus on the problem at hand and instead goes off on oblique tangents at every opportunity. This is a clear attempt to obfuscate the situation, which seems odd given that they ran a 'clean and ethical campaign'.

Del Mastro talks about every single type of call that goes on during an election, except of course for the ones in which someone or some robosystem fraudulently represents Elections Canada and provides misinformation. He intimates that his legitimate campaign calls were 'annoying', thus grouping them in with fraudulent personation calls. He groups annoying and illegal in the same bucket.

From a plausible deniability standpoint, this type of messaging is designed to confuse the electorate: Yes, we made annoying calls and we admit that - every party makes annoying calls - that's part of politics - we're sorry we made annoying calls - we hope you weren't too annoyed...illegal calls? Well, we would never do that. We make annoying calls. We're super-annoying.

Blinding the electorate with science

From Hansard, March 1: Dean Del Mastro

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party conducted a clean and ethical campaign in ridings right across this country. We hired legitimate companies to undertake legitimate exercises throughout that campaign to ensure that voters got out to vote. In fact, some 900,000 more Canadians voted in the last election.

More voters during a systematic voter suppression campaign? Well I guess voters weren't suppressed after all.

This type of 'statistical evidence', as per usual, is removed from any sort of context, such as the increase in population over five years or the number of eligible Canadians to vote based on their age (older population = more voters). In fact, the NDP debunked this message (in Hansard as well): For those who have tried to convince us over recent days that 900,000 more people voted in the last election, I would tell them that the total number of voters did not even exceed 60% of those electors entitled to vote.

Call centre staff probably went off script

Must have been human error. This is the latest idea being floated out in the media. Basically it reads as 'we have no idea what people did with the approved script and if they went off script (and pretended to be Elections Canada and provided misinformation?) then it is their fault and not ours.

Basically the premise of this 'excuse' is that humans are prone to absurd, unethical and illegal errors, and that's probably what happened, especially if the Conservative call centres are implicated in the Elections Canada dragnet. If call centre reps took it upon themselves to misrepresent Elections Canada, that's regrettable but not our fault.

Liberal call centres

The Liberals used call centres! It must have been them suppressing their own vote! Those scurrilous Liberals!

Really Conservatives, you're not even trying with this one. But it does add to the plausible deniability narrative that is being read to us through the mainstream media.

Evidence - yes or no?

On February 29, Stephen Harper rose in Parliament:

 From Hansard, Stephen Harper Feb 29

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party has made available all its information to Elections Canada. The Conservative Party did not make inappropriate calls. I conclude that this is just a smear campaign by a party that lost the election.

So they have made ALL information available to Elections Canada. And yet, the CPC are also reviewing all tapes of all calls before Elections Canada can review them.

So here we have the Conservatives saying on the one hand they've given all information to Elections Canada, and on the other hand they are reviewing their own calls prior to review by Elections Canada. Once again, confusing evidence/non-evidence is another way to create plausible deniability around this criminal conspiracy (or scandal, whatever you prefer).

What this is purporting is that all evidence has been given to Elections Canada, but we're reviewing our own phone calls, because they're not evidence, but we're reviewing them anyway.

Conclusion

Robocon is being played out in the public sphere and the bubble of Parliament, and those guilty of personation of Elections Canada and voter suppression will feel the long arm of the law yank them from their beds and rightly put them in prison. Yet it seems to me that the Conservatives investigation is focused more on making sure that long arm doesn't reach all the way to Parliament and that if it does, it's grip will be slippery at best.