Canadian Conservatives Lie, Henry Louis Gate Arresting Officer Will Not Apologize, Gates Remains Angry And Annoying, New Jersey Corruption Charges

Canadian Conservative Industry Minister, with a straight face, said Thursday that the decision to refuse tourism funds to the Montreal based gay festival Diverse/Cite was done out of “regional fairness,” adding that the province of Quebec receives a total of 42% of federal funding. The statement made by Clement, who, historically, demonstrates a kind of spectacularly stupid political acumen rarely seen, ignores the obvious, which is that the Conservative Party, despite promises to the contrary, is making sponsorship choices based on content.

The officer who arrested angry academic Henry Louis Gates last week after arriving at Gate’s rented home in Cambridge, Massachusetts in response to a call that two black men were breaking into said home, and only after Gates refused to show any identification, said Thursday that it was “disappointing” that President Obama commented on the incident. Sergeant James Crowley, an expert on racial profiling, in an interview, was responding to Obama’s comments that the Cambridge police department “acted stupidly.” The charges of disorderly conduct have since been dropped against Gates, a Harvard professor who specializes in African-American studies, but Crowley said neither he nor the Cambridge police department will apologize, arguing that he was following protocol.

To be fair, knowing the little I do of Gates (it is a long, but unfortunate story that involves Tina Brown) it is not difficult to imagine the pompous professor refusing to simply show the on scene officer identification, which would have resolved the event without incident, and you best belief the arrest and aftermath will be used in a seriously self-aggrandizing manner by the teacher.

Like the Sopranos, but minus the music, the F.B.I. Thursday morning executed a massive money laundering raid in New Jersey, arresting at least forty, including the mayors of three of the state’s city’s (Hoboken, Ridgefield, and Secaucus), state legislators, and men who might or might not be rabbis. The money laundering ring was of the international variety, trafficking in fake designer handbags and human organs.