sona, bigbird, namebadge

And who is this witness?

Big Bird, Pierre Poutine name badge &Sona

I smell a diesel bus.

poutine

Phone number behind misleading call traced to Conservative office disconnected: Kitchener-Conestoga MP to investigate: http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/642172--phone-number-behind-misleading-call-disconnected

 "The party claims the marketing firm RMG, which was charged with placing the calls, accidentally contacted her about voting in Kitchener Centre. An investigation by The Record revealed the link between the party and the phone call Siopiolosz received. It also revealed she was not alone.

"Elections Canada received over 100 reports of such misleading phone calls in the run-up to the May 2nd election. When called Monday, the phone number went to a voicemail from the “Conservative Party” that promised to get back to inquiries within three days. As of Tuesday morning, the number was no longer in service."

Firm that made Cotler calls also worked for Speaker Andrew Scheer, other Tory candidates. http://shar.es/WXmGm | Federal Tories say alleged election crank call was just an honest mistake.  http://bit.ly/syMiv5

that's rich 

blackwhite&redallover

In the news:
Michael Sona speaks out (robocalls). link
Creepiness at the BBC (Jimmy Savile scandal). link
More Alberta Conservative donations. Oilers and Katz (NHL). link
Texas, Jesus and geological time. link
Twitter, hedge funds, Sandy and misinformation. link
Bananas at Wayne Simmonds (NHL). link and link

spoofing & disposable cell phones

To spoof or not to spoof. "A spoofing attack is a situation in which one person or program successfully masquerades as another by falsifying data and thereby gaining an illegitimate advantage." And the disposable 'burner' cell phone, purchased in the Guelph area, using RackNine, who's suing Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre) and the NDP ($5m) for loss of business and defamation, which seems quite petty, no ... pathetic. Lemme get this straight. There is one investigator (Ronald Lamothe) and there are 31,000+ Elections Canada complaints.

Spoofing: what happened? in Saanich-Gulf Islands, nothing. harassment, spoofing, intimidation, or false identification do not count (Elections Canada)?? that is not reassuring. but good to know, because... it's time to start making calls! anonyvotomafioso fraud is okay! elections are ... just like Nigerian bank emails!

like the anonymous phone calls to an elderly breast cancer survivor who spoke out about her humiliating experience with airport security and scanners. ("airport security slammed after senior humiliated, tot subjected to pat-down," Friday, January 14, 2011 - "Since her story garnered national publicity, Strecker says she's received several anonymous voice mails accusing her of using the incident for personal gain.")

Lemme get this straight, again. There is one investigator (Ronald Lamothe) and 31,000+ Elections Canada complaints.

pierre poutine - misdirecting voters

Well. that's just great. First a Conservative staffer is fired, or resigns, the same stormtrooper at Guelph (Michael Sona) and helper to Rob or was it James Moore of fake iPod tax advertisements and also to Marty Burke, in the capacity of communications specialist.

Hm. On January 19, 2010, James Moore ( Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam) of Chuck Cadman fame, nono, Rob Moore (Fundy Royal) was appointed to cabinet as the Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism), who replaced Diane Ablonczy [that trouble with gay pride festival funding in hogtown], who moved to Minister of State (Seniors), and he (Rob) was released from cabinet after the May 2nd general election in 2011.

ipodtax.ca
Registrant name: James Moore MP

Michael Sona
Member's Assistant
House of Commons
Moore, Rob

Harper denies Tory link to Pierre Poutin, and blames uh, Vladimir Putin. And RackNine is suing the NDP.

Matt Meier, president and CEO of Racknine Inc. in Edmonton.

North Dakota -
Elections Canada won't probe 'annoying' political calls, ex-MP told (former MP Joe Volpe's lawyer)
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Elections+Canada+probe+annoying+political+calls+told/6229034/story.html

RCMP on the robocalls case feb28
http://impolitical.blogspot.com/2012/02/rcmp-on-robocalls-case.html

A growing file on the robocalls feb29
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/02/29/papers-pundits-a-growing-file-on-the-robocalls/

American dirty tricks expert calls robocalls 'shock to system' of Canadian democracy
By Michelle Zilio, Postmedia News February 29, 2012 http://www.vancouversun.com/news/American+dirty+tricks+expert+calls+robocalls+shock+system+Canadian/6230827/story.html

Elections Canada flooded by over 31,000 reports about election robocalls
The Canadian Press 03/2/2012 9:55 AM | Comments: 248 (including replies) | Last Modified: 03/2/2012 2:59 PM
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/elections-canada-reviewing-more-than-31000-complaints-about-robocalls-141180953.html

Irwin Cotler, citizen directed to vote in a local Kitchener park and the honest mistake, Tue Dec 20 2011
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1104778--federal-tories-say-alleged-election-crank-call-was-just-an-honest-mistake

Firm that made Cotler calls also worked for Speaker Andrew Scheer, other Tory candidates - Campaign Research Inc., December 14, 2011. 10:52 am
http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2011/12/14/firm-cited-in-cotler-calls-decision-did-major-work-for-tory-candidates/

Robo-calls: Tory MPs used top U.S. Republican firm during May election, Mar 03 2012
Fourteen Conservative MPs signed on with a well-connected Republican company during last year’s election campaign, contrary to the party’s claims, the Star has learned.
On its website, Front Porch Strategies, a “voter contact and constituency outreach” firm based in Columbus, Ohio, boasts: “In May’s federal elections, Front Porch Strategies won all 14 of their races.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1140344--conservative-mps-used-top-republican-firm-during-may-election

Michael Sona: I Had 'No Involvement' In Fraudulent Calls, Updated: 02/28/2012 10:55 pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/02/28/michael-sona-tory-election-calls_n_1308404.html

Ex-Conservative has warning- Mon Feb 27 2012
A few months ago I was a card carrying Conservative, serving as a director on both the Guelph and Kitchener-Center Conservative electoral district association boards. (Victor Pocaterra, Kitchener)
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters/article/1137705--ex-conservative-has-warning

one cent rmg = # of close ridings - $15,000.01

Reprinted from Orléans Star: Richard Cléroux.

Conservative candidates in Quebec paid for scam election calls elsewhere in Canada. Out of money they got from Toronto. Finally, Quebeckers can say they played some part in the scheme that misled Liberal voters by the thousands to non-existent polling stations on May 2. For a while we wondered if the scammers had forgotten about us. Everything was happening in the rest of Canada. Nothing in Quebec. And then suddenly there was Pierre Poutine. He was one of us. It wasn’t much, just a cellphone number and an address on “Separatist Street” in Joliettte. But at least it was Quebec. Ah, Poutine you saved the day and gave us our pride back. What’s a Conservative scam without at least some Quebeckers? 

It was the brilliant Le Devoir journalist Hélène Buzzetti who broke the story. Using the telephone – what else for this kind of story? – she established that money that helped pay for the Conservatives’ automated robocalls went through Quebec. She called up Quebec conservative candidates one after another. She had them singing like canaries in a mine after a while.

Bertin Denis, defeated Conservative candidate in Rimouski-Neigette-Témiscouata-Les Basques, (that’s a trip in itself) admitted his campaign organization had paid $ 15 000.01 to the Toronto-based Responsive Marketing Group (RMG.) Bertin Denis laid it out plainly. He was no more than a "mail box" for paying phone call bills to other parts of Canada. The party had sent him $55,000 but he had to write out a cheque to RMG for $15,000.01. Money in, money out. (Sounds familiar?) He couldn’t remember what the cheque to RMG was for.

A day later, after the right sort of guidance from Stephen Harper speaking in the House of Commons, Denis remembered. The cheque was for RMG services in his riding during the campaign. It had all came back to him. Call it senior’s moment. His official agent Ghislain Pelletier, had been most helpful. He told the reporter :  "The company sent us the invoice and I paid it, on the recommendation of the party."

Same sort of business went on in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord. The riding organization paid $15,000.01 to RMG.  (We don’t know about that extra last penny. It probably means something. Maybe Stephen Harper knows.) The Conservative candidate there was former journalist Carol Nero, who told the reporter he didn’t really know what the cheque to RMG was about.

Did he get his money’s worth? "I can’t really say if I got my money’s worth or not." (The life of a journalist is often like that.) 

There were others involved in the in and out money. They included: Sen. Larry Smith, the former Alouettes president, in Lac St. Louis-Dollard; Michel-Eric Castonguay, in Montmorency-Charlevoix-Haute-Côte-Nord; Pierre Paul-Hus in Louis-Hébert, except in his case it was a little different. His official agent, Martin Lemire explained that the Conservative Party had sent documentation because "it was more profitable than hiring volunteers."

In total, according to Elections Canada, 97 Conservative candidates across Canada, including 18 in Quebec, sent cheques to RMG or to other firms making telephone calls for the party. There is one other thing to note. RMG's billings do not appear in the national organization’s election records. It’s probably better that way.

The Conservative Party pleaded guilty last November to charges of electoral fraud precisely because it gave campaign funds to its candidates in 2006, and took back some of the money in exchange for a receipt the ridings could claim as legitimate expenses from Elections Canada. The Conservative Party paid $52,000 in fines, but at least nobody went to jail.

The important thing for us Quebeckers to remember is that we were not forgotten by the federal Conservative party in the telephone scheme. Now if we could just find that Pierre Poutine fellow, or even his “Separatist Street.” Anybody out there from Joliette?

http://www.orleansstar.ca/Blog-Article/b/21598/Quebeckers-share-in-election-scam