There's an important witness that we haven't heard from in the furor over whether NDP leader Wab Kinew roughed up his girlfriend so badly that she could hardly walk back when he was attending university.
His name is Wab Kinew.
His ex-girlfriend has given reporters her story of what happened one night in 2003 culminating in being hurled across their apartment with such force that she landed on her hands and knees and suffered painful rugburn. She fled their home in fear the next day, she said.
He's missed no opportunity to say that that never happened, leaving Manitobans with the only conclusion --- he's saying she is lying. Lying today and lying when she pressed charges (which were laid by the RCMP and eventually stayed the following year by the Crown).
But Kinew has never given his account of what did happen. And Winnipeg's 'professional journalists' haven't asked for his version of that night. There's no excuse for this oversight. Getting both sides of a story is a basic tenet of journalism.
Did Kinew leave a clue to his behavior in his memoir The Reason You Walk?
"I developed a mean streak. After a few beers I would shift from cracking jokes and having a good time to trying to mess with people. I would get in someone's face and insult them until they either backed down or fought me. Either way, the goal was the same --- feed my ego." (Page 69-70)
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Has anyone noticed the irony of having the New Democratic Party led by an almost-one-percenter?
Wab Kinew released his tax information just before the leadership vote, showing he earned $205,000 in 2016. The cutoff to be a one-percenter,--- the top income earners in the country---is $225,000.
Kinew was $20,000 short, but he's still a two-percenter, at least.
And Kinew may be a good socialist, but that doesn't mean he can't use tax "loopholes" to pad his own pocket.
He made $81,900 in book royalties, but used a tax dodge of having the money paid into a corporation which then paid him the money as dividends.
As dividends, half the money is not taxable.
Not bad, eh. More than $40,000 tax-free.
Good socialists believe in income sharing---yours, not theirs.