THE KENT BROTHERS: ONE SEARCHES FOR THE TRUTH. THE OTHER WORKS FOR THE GUY WHO TRIES TO HIDE IT.

ARTHUR KENT: THE SCUD STUD

AND NOBODY'S PATSY

PETER KENT (on the right), member of the Hijackers government seen here with DON MARTIN, Conservative wordsmith for the now-defunct CanWest Global organization, arch foe of brother Arthur, and cheerleader for Stephen Harper

Arthur Kent is an Alberta boy – born in Medicine Hat and raised in Calgary. Now in his mid-fifties he has had a remarkable career in journalism for more than thirty years. Newshounding runs in his family. His old man, Parker Kent, was a longtime print journalist who rose to become an Associate Editor for the now–bankrupt Calgary Herald back in the days when it was a real newspaper. Arthur also has an older brother who spent some years in the television news business.

Among Kent’s many accomplishments are a prize-winning television documentary about Afghanistan under the warlords produced months before 9/11, winning Emmys for his coverage of the tragedy in Tiananmen Square and the bloodshed in Bosnia, and covering the Rumanian revolution. In Iraq during Desert Storm he was the dashing ‘Scud Stud’ reporting the mayhem nightly on NBC television news, and in 2006 he produced another documentary on the troubles in Afghanistan. He’s covered Pakistan, Russia, China and all of the hot spots all over the world. NBC, CBC, CTV, the Observer are just a few of the news organizations that have given him a pay cheque over the years.

When he worked for NBC in the early nineties he had the guts to sue the corporation for allowing entertainment values to dominate the news. And he won big time. Towing the company line was not his strong suit and so for the past fifteen years or so he’s been a freelance filmmaker, writer, and reporter and has produced an impressive body of work. See: http://www.skyreporter.com/about/

Kent doesn’t take any guff from anybody. If one gets into a pissing contest with him and if he’s right he will let you know. If you persist and try to come at him he’ll sue you at the drop of a hat. Ask NBC or CanWest Global and Don Martin, and they’ll tell you. See: http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:1xrpZJ6p9wIJ:www.news-cruncher.com/2009/09/arthur-kent-v-don-martin-canwest.html+Arthur+Kent+Ed+Stelmach&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

Kent also tells it like it is. During his ill-fated attempt as a provincial Tory candidate in a Calgary riding in the provincial election of 2008 while running under the hapless leadership of Special Ed Stelmach, Stelmach stood Kent up by not attending a fundraiser as promised. Kent quickly accused the Stelmach campaign of wanting “nothing but my name.”

His criticisms of the Stelmach organization at the time were eerily similar to what Heather Forsyth and Rob Anderson had to say the other day when they bolted to the Wild Rose Alliance. Kent said that people around Stelmach saw Kent and his team “as competitors . . . rather than as partners,” and that the Stelmach people should be more inclusive. He said that the Stelmach’s people “should be asking us what we’re hearing on the doorsteps and where the campaign should go,” and that they did not do that. “One-way communication,” he said, “is not the way to go,” and , “. . . we have to do things differently.” See: http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/columnists/story.html?id=43d6e93c-08b1-4180-8600-302926f66656

Kent lost the election and went back doing what he does best - being a globe trotting journalist.

Yesterday Kent was raising hell again, this time at Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Republican minority government. Kent said the proroguing of Parliament was a hijacking which enables the government to avoid coming clean on the bad news of the Afghan war and the abuse of the detainees. He called Harper’s action of muzzling discussion of Afghanstan the PM’s fatwa, described it as ‘control freakery,’ and accused the government of concealing the Karzai regime’s corruption so as to avoid having to do something about it.

And there was more. Kent also accused the Harper government of ‘smothering’ stories such as the continuing trafficking in heroin and dirty money at the Kabul Airport, the ‘violent crackdown’ on the Kabul press, the disappearance of gazillions of Canadian tax dollars to fake Afghan cops and crooked officials, and Karzai’s nomination as Counter-Narcotics Minister of a widely known corrupt election fixer with criminal associations. See: http://www.skyreporter.com/blog/page/1/20100109_01/

There’s a whole bunch of other juicy stuff you can read on Kent’s blog.

Ah, yes, did I mention that Arthur Kent has an older brother that used to be a journalist? That older brother is none other than Peter Kent, MP for Thornhill who holds the lofty title of Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the Americas while serving the hijackers that are hiding all of these sordid facts from the Canadian people. As a ‘journalist’ Peter of course is a different kettle of fish than his feisty younger brother. While Arthur was out there putting himself in harm’s way to inform his viewers and listeners of the truth, most of the time Peter distinguished himself as merely a talking head. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kent

Well, bravo to Arthur Kent. He has shown that he has big cojones and that he cares about informing the public.

I wonder if the brothers spend their Christmas Holidays together.

ALBERTA TORIES: THE RODENTS BEGIN TO LEAVE

Not only are the Alberta Tory rodents scampering towards the nearest deck, today a couple of them even jumped over the side of the ship. Fish Creek MLA Heather Forsyth and Airdrie-Chestemere MLA Rob Anderson announced that they had finally given up on Special Ed and had become proud new members of the Wild Rose-Alliance caucus. With the defectors joining Calgary Glenmore MLA Paul Hinman, the new party now has three members in the legislature.

For Ed and the tired and bedraggled Tories the chickens are coming home to roost big time. Forsyth was one of the Calgary ministers Ed purged upon his takeover of the party. She had been both Solicitor General and Minister of Children’s Services in a high profile political career that began with her first electoral victory in 1993. The protection of children was a major interest for her and even Reader’s Digest recognized her contribution in the area by naming her a Canadian Hero in 2002. But it didn’t matter to Ed and the boys. Calgary had taken enough from the cookie jar. It was the yokels' turn.

Forsyth must have smarted from her fall from being a prominent and senior minister to being relegated to the chair of the moribund Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, and positions on such lowly committees as Private Bills, Privileges and Elections, and Orders and Printing. How much lower can you get?

Anderson is a new kid on the block having been elected in the spring election of 2007. He is reported to be a very bright guy who worked as one of the suits for the same downtown Calgary blue-chip law firm that pays Ralph Klein a tidy sum to tell dinosaur fart jokes while yukking it up over scotch with their clients in oak-paneled board rooms.

Forsyth said that she became a turncoat because Alberta needs a stable economy and fiscal policies that will “bring back investors confidence, lower taxes, and once again the Alberta Advantage needs to be back on the agenda,” and that she had confidence that she and the Wild Rose Alliance “can work together to build the province that Albertans deserve.”

Anderson’s statement accused Stelmach and his pals of failing to address his constituents’ concerns and of muzzling him in speaking out about the issues. Thus, he said, he was going to speak more forcefully for the people who elected him and added, “I have no interest in investing any more of my life and taxpayer’s money defending poor public policy that has been developed by a small band of out-of-touch government appointees and insiders.” I presume he was talking about Special Ed and his band of yokels.

They are the first of what is likely to be a steady procession of Alberta Tories abandoning what was once the proud party of Peter Lougheed for more promising prospects. Conservatives, after all, have proven more than once that they believe that “if the guy that brung ya falters on the dance floor, well then, we’re outta here,” such as when Socreds bolted from the party of Harry Strom to the party of Peter Lougheed. The best recent example was the fate of the federal Progressive Conservative Party in the wake of the unpopularity of Brian Mulroney and the ineptitude of his successor Kim Campbell. In the West, PCs switched and voted en masse for Preston Manning and his Reform Party and the old federal PCs were kaput.

The Alberta PCs blew their only chance of survival by not having the courage to dump Stelmach at the leadership review convention in November. Now they are stuck with him until the next election. Is there a chance of Eddie leaving before then in favour of a new and more attractive leader? I don’t think so. There is no messiah on the horizon. And besides, he and his yokels still have the cookie jar, which was what it was all about in the first place.

See: http://www.calgarysun.com/news/alberta/2010/01/04/12341791.html