Your “How ‘Bout A Change Of Pace?” Thursday Evening Open Thread

NFL Noise:

• Demaryius Thomas has been arrested for vehicular assault.
  • He was the driver in a single-vehicle, rollover accident where a passenger was hurt.
  • Under Colorado law, “vehicular assault” occurs when a person drives recklessly or under the influence of alcohol and the driving causes serious bodily injury to another person. It does not require intent to injure, and is a felony.

• The Combine height measurements are out, and Kyler Murray is officially 5-10 1/8″ in height.
  • Russell Wilson was 5-10 5/8 at the 2012 Combine, as point of comparison.

• Jason Witten has had enough of Booger McFarland and has rejoined the Cowboys.
  • “The fire inside of me to compete and play this game is just burning too strong.”
    • Also helping – $5 million.
  • He had signed a four-year deal with ESPN.
    • They are not unhappy, as the three-man team seemed a bit unwieldy.
    • They are “keeping his seat warm” in case he wants to return, and they have no other options.

• Shocking news: Robert Kraft has pleaded “not guilty” in his solicitation case.
  • He has asked for a non-jury trial.
    • This will allow prosecutors to enter any video evidence they have into the (very) public record.
      • Unless he’s able to have it disqualified.

If you’re tired of the Cohen testimony, why not turn to a quaint little scandal we have brewing up here in Canada?

As Wakezilla brought up earlier today, we are currently wrapped in the warm embrace of a purely Canadian affair. SNC-Lavalin is one of Quebec’s – and Canada’s – largest engineering & construction firms, employing thousands of people and contributing millions of dollars to the federal & provincial economy. The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, or Quebec Pension Plan, is one of its largest investors. If SNC-Lavalin goes down, it goes down hard & takes a lot of people with it.

To crib the details from Global News:

In 2015, the RCMP charged SNC-Lavalin, along with its international division, with corruption and fraud in relation with their business dealings in Libya.

The RCMP said officials at the company attempted to bribe several public officials in the country, including dictator Moammar Gadhafi, as well as other businesses in Libya.

RCMP officials said SNC-Lavalin also lied to Libyan companies to defraud them of nearly $130 million.

If convicted, the company would be barred from bidding on federal projects for 10 years, and current federal contracts would be in jeopardy.

[Not part of this scandal but part of a different one: allegations SNC-Lavalin arranged strippers (or hookers, depending on the site) for Gadhafi’s son when he visited Montreal. They also allegedly tried to assist in smuggling him from Libya to Mexico just as his father’s government was collapsing.]

Among other things, the company was trying to avoid a trial by pressuring government officials, and the Prime Minister – Trudeau, who represents a Quebec riding – into getting government prosecutors to levy a fine instead of proceeding to trial. The fine would allow them to end proceeding and still be able to bid on government contracts.

The scandal comes from various officials trying to convince the then-Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to get her team to change their minds. She refused those missives, and a few weeks later was shuffled out of the Attorney general position and into Veterans’ Affairs, a clear demotion. A few weeks later, she quit the government cabinet altogether, because she apparently has ethics and refused to sit at the same table with people she didn’t believe she could trust.

The Globe & Mail published a news story reporting on the alleged pressuring, which led to a series of denials and public hearings, which culminated yesterday in her testifying that she was pressured by various forces, including the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister’s Office.

PM JT has always said that the decision to proceed with prosecution was hers, and in his mind I believe him. He probably raised the issue with her, and she testified that it was made clear to her the economic issues that would be realized if they were tried & convicted. Other Quebec MPs also lobbied her on behalf of the province’s third-largest private-sector employer. But her ethics – as a former Crown prosecutor – led her to pursue the course of justice, and for that she lost the political game & her position.

But she might win the war. She believes that the lobbying on SNC-Lavalin’s behalf was undue pressure. Most everyone agrees that she has done nothing wrong, and that the PM – at best – made a poor judgment call in trying to put economics ahead of the law. At worst, he kicked her to the curb for not doing the legal-but-shady thing he was asking her for, all out of satisfying rich donors to his party.

The reason Trudeau hasn’t resigned (yet) is because this scandal barely hurts him outside of keeping his name in the news with ominous tones. Standing up for a Quebec company (and indirectly the Quebec Pension fund) actually wins him support in Quebec, where 1/3 of the Liberals support comes from, and makes him look like a protector of Canadian industry. Also, the opposition leaders are Andrew Scheer of the Conservatives,

who looks & sounds like a wilted penis, and Jagmeet Singh of the NDP,

whose socialist party has never come close to forming government because they make AOC look like a fascist.

We have a federal election in October, and unless someone has photos of JT doing cocaine off a hooker’s back, he’s likely to win another term, albeit in a minority governing position. What’s the old Erasmus saying – in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. But there is now talk of SNC-Lavalin moving it’s headquarters to London if it’s convicted & locked out of Canadian contracts for 10 years. So, that’s interesting.

Canada: we scandal the old-fashioned way – corrupt businessmen influencing government.

Tonight’s sports:

• NHL:
  • Lightning at Bruins – 7:30PM | NBCSN / Sportsnet

• NBA:
  • Warriors at Magic – 7:00PM | Sportsnet1
  • 76ers at Thunder – 8:00PM | TNT / TSN
  • Jazz at Nuggets – 10:30PM | TNT / TSN

• NCAA:  
  • Xavier at St. John’s – 6:30PM | FS1
  • Nebraska at Michigan – 7:00PM | ESPN
  • Connecticut at Wichita State – 7:00PM | ESPN2
  • Arizona at Oregon State – 9:00PM | FS1
  • Southern California at UCLA – 9:00PM | ESPN
  • Minnesota at Northwestern – 9:00PM | ESPN2

Honest to Cthulhu, I’m tired of turning on the news & hearing about all this bullshit. JUST GIVE ME MY SPORTS, TEEVEE!