Jury of the Damned

And so the Jury of the Damned otherwise known as the US House of Representatives has its pound of flesh. It dares to cry "abuse of power for personal gain!" when it has been their members' rallying cry. It has the brazen gall to shout,"No one is above the Law!" when its members and its heroes outside of their benighted Chamber have trampled the Law with impunity and immunity repeatedly. One Grand Juror was himself impeached and convicted and removed successfully from a judgeship for bribery, perjury and 5 other counts. One violated tax laws while sitting on the Tax Committee. Another used her position on the Banking Comittee to secure sweetheart deals for her husband's bank. And running the whole show, the one who called the POTUS an "impostor" before anyone had heard of the Ukraine, the Speaker used her office to save Visa billions while getting an exclusive insider Visa Stock deal that netted her and her husband millions. Let he who is without sin sit down and shut up!

Merry Christmas, Middle Class!

Dear Mona AKA Minister of Middle Class Dreams:

I hope that this finds you, your Staff, your family, Bill and Justin well and on your way to enjoying a truly Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I did not forget about you and neither did Santa. I have two early Xmas gifts for you but more importantly, the Middle Class, that I believe will bring great seasonal joy throughout the year and for many years to come: two ideas for how to enhance and sustain our Middle Class's prosperity and, even more importantly, make you the Hero! Both ideas this time come from me but really from almost the entire economic faculties of most accredited universities so I'm not so smart.

One: please call, write, email or better yet, Tweet, the President of the United States and ask him how he's getting it done. No, seriously now! I know that just to say the name "Trump" unless it's to recount international geopolitical and diplomatic atrocities with Christine and Justin or to vaguely recall the good times when you watched him "Fire" people on TV in the 2000's, is downright dangerous. But, the proof is surely in the goldplated Christmas pudding he has baked down there.

MIddle class incomes in the US have gone up 10% or roughly $6000 since he came to office. Ours have hardly budged. Their unemployment rate is roughly half of ours and their per capita income is 50% more than ours. Even health costs have gone done there for God's sake! The question you should ask him, in 140 characters or less, is "How do you do it, Mistah Trump?" If you do not ask it, surely many other statespeople from around the World will be asking, so get in line now!

Two: If you really cannot bear the idea of even trying to learn anything from President Antichrist, then how about this: one of the reasons our middle class people are falling behind also happens to do with the fact that many things cost more up here than they do in the States. And the reason for that is almost always because our governments protect our business, (yes, big, bad, rapacious, greedy business!), from competition with protectionist laws and regulations that keep consumer choices few, competitiveness non existent, service bad and prices high. Naturally, politicians like you pretend that it protects consumers to do this but it is the opposite of course.  Worse, they claim that it's patriotic and for national security which as you know is the last refuge of scoundrels.

By some accounts, our telecomms rules make cellphones at least $200 per month more expensive for us than for an American family. You may as a busy minister who doesn't get to fly in the Forces' Flight, have noticed how much more expensive it is to fly within Canada than to fly in the US for greater distances. That's because we do not have Open Skies. By most accounts our Agricultural markets' regulation makes all dairy and,poultry products cost hundreds more to families here every year. The savings for a family of just these three fields would be at least an extra $3-5000 per year depending on the family's plans for air flight. But there are other examples. Maybe the worst are tariffs that are so old that they have long since stopped protecting a real industry from foreign competitors but, because they are so punitive, they discourage importers and thus do not even collect revenue while depriving the consumer of new affordable choices, especially in the clothing industry. 

Suggestions: get rid of these tariffs that the PM's own trade advisor once recommended repealing. Then recommend strongly that Open Skies be implemented so that Canadian passengers can choose to hire any airline to take them anywhere they want. Call vigorously for the elimination of all regulation of Telecomms so that it is (except for health and safety) no more regulated here than say oil or beef. Then watch the Middle Class save like crazy and get better and more services, too. Finally, if your colleagues have recovered from the cardio vascular symptoms that may develop just from you speaking to them privately about these ideas let alone in public, go for the end of Supply Management. Not just middle class families will thank you, but many good old-fashioned working class and poor mothers who find it a mighty block to membership in the MC the problem of choosing between buying milk for their children and getting them a dentist, will also hail you as a real life Canadian hero!

Just a few ideas that I hope will warm the cockles of your Middle Class Aspiration-stoking heart in this fine Holiday Season! Don't thank me. I will thank you if you actually dare to dream like this in public. 

Pelosi Moderates

The Charlie Brown's football of American politics: the Democrat "Moderate". We used to call them Blue Dog Democrats or even sometimes (back in the day when they actually voted that way) Conservative or DLC Democrats. But as we know the last Blue Dog died years ago and the DLC is an acronym not for Democratic Leadership Council but Democratic Loser Committee. Like Charlie Brown, the conservative or independent minded voter (read today, a Republican who can't stomach Trump) votes for these people when they tell them during the election  campaign that they are "moderate" nay probably severely conservative in private. Therefore you can trust them to be bipartisan to vote against the party line occasionally, to ignore attempts to demonize or even criminalize the opposition and, to bring this up to date, not investigate and impeach.

But Lucy, the Democrat moderate congressperson, always takes the football, bipartisanship, away from Charlie Brown, aforesaid moderate voter, at the last minute and Charlie goes hilariously flying. Case in point: Trump Impeachment. Almost all the 31 so called moderate Dems in the House promised their constituents that they were not interested in investigation and impeachment. They just wanted to get things done, even if it meant cooperating with the GOP and that Barbarian, Donald Trump. The only thing they've done since is impeachment despite the clout they could wield to work on bettering the Nation (they represent almost twice the majority margin the Dems have in the House).

Now, we find out again their true colours on the impeachment votes. Already all but two of these people have voted for the inquiry and it looks like all but 6 at best will vote for impeachment. The reality sinks in again. These are Pelosi Democrats. It will come as no surprise to all but the most naive that these 31 have voted the way she has ordered them to do all the time. You can only fool all of the moderate voters some of the time but you can certainly make almost all "moderate" Dems vote Nancy's way all of the time, usually by threatening to withhold party funds from their campaign or to primary them. It's sadly that raw.

Ask yourself the same question that was pertinent in FISA - if this was so "unbiased" then how come everything went against Trump? Similarly, if these people were truly thinking, sensate human beings who really were allowed or wanted to think and act for themselves on the question of impeachment, than how come about half are not about to vote against it? The situation is in fact double, both partisan and intellectual. That is, if these people were bipartisan they would split naturally but also, as the issue of impeachability is one that clearly splits the nation and is highly controversial even by the most blinkered perceptions, then it goes double that these moderates should have dissented from their rabidly partisan leadership.

But no, and that is why they should simply be called Pelosi Democrats from now on. That way the voters in their districts (who I believe will turf them from their seats for their perfidy next year) will finally get Truth in Advertising. If any American voter still thinks that these 31 are moderate, they must believe the Speaker is neutral, watch too much CNN and think that AOC  should be curator of the Reagan Library.

The Lion and the New Big Bang

It's hopefully not to early to think about Post-Brexit Britain. The PM talked about unleashing the Lion of the British economy from its cage by finally "getting Brexit Done" TM. But, that won't happen simply by decoupling the UK from the parlous death pact called the EU. It will help to be able to trade freely again no doubt and it is exciting. But, the problem of the UK's low productivity and competitiveness will persist. The "austerity" years of the 2010 on were not in spending. The UK govt alone spends 900 billion pounds annually. If yet more spending was the answer for anyone, including all of those new Tory voters in the North, the Labour would have won a huge majority and the Liberals would have been second.

If the British Lion is to leap and not limp out of its cage, it will need some red meat - a new Big Bang for the economy. Deregulation, a streamlined, low and consumption based tax system and free trade will put more money into the pockets of all Britons so that if it doesn't catch up with the income levels of Americans, it can at least get to within hailing distance of the Irish! The People are now more understanding of the need for this economic renewal than at any time since perhaps the 1980's. To get Post-Brexit done, you need to renovate and rebuild the economy. Relieve the real austerity of taking almost half of all Britons' pay cheque away every year and Post-Brexit will be the golden age for the UK the PM predicts.

Peter and Paul

When will our politicians realize that taxing the rich to give to the poor is really taking from us all? The $3000 increase in the Basic Exemption the Liberals announced will simply be countered by hiking the top marginal rates. Yecch! The Economic and Tax analyst, Jack Mintz, said that the former may encourage people at the low end to enter the workplace. But, if that is true, they may find that there is no job there due to the latter. Notice that that is not a problem for American low income workers. That's because the American job creator as well as the job holder got breaks. In the US, Trump gave to Peter so he could give to Paul.

"...for personal gain."

BLOG -

Perhaps the most galling aspect of the one ring circus known as "Impeachment" is the spectacle of men and women like Pelosi and Schumer organizing the process against a man who never made a dollar from public office in his life and putting in one of their loathsome articles of impeachment the allegation that the POTUS used his office for "personal gain". Let's just say that has to be the all time worst, most flagrant example of the big, fat, self-serving Donkey Democrat calling the neophyte politician/businessman black.

Recently, Michael Bloomberg suggested that Trump should be impeached because he did not appear to know the difference between his interest and that of the Nation. All I can say is that Hizzoner must have been unconscious these past twenty years or more. During that sad benighted time, politicians of all stripes have used their offices routinely and with impunity for massive personal gain.

GOP Speakers Hastert and Boehner both made a fortune from speculating in land the uses of which they had insider knowledge about due to their office. Senator Harry Reid, former Majority Leader, retired a multimillionaire after never working at anything except being a Public Attorney and a Senator. Chuck Schumer, who no doubt will vote to impeach, once told his Wall Street donors that they had to pay him to protect themselves against onerous securities regulations that he helped to pass.

And Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the one who said that "No one is above the Law" in relation to Trump, once made a killing with her husband from an exclusive stock deal with Visa after personally ensuring that the Congress did not pass legislation that would have cut its profits. Meanwhile, her apparently bootless son was recently hired by a big company no doubt NOT under her potential jurisdiction, punishment or favour. And then there's the Bidens. Even the State Department toads that denounced Trump for conditioning aid to the corrupt Ukraine on going after, well, corrupt people like the Bidens admitted that there was a conflict in their doings there and that officials had been "trained" to send any questions about it to...VP Biden's Office!

Madeleine Albright became a multi million dollar shill for China shortly after leaving the State Department. Senator Dianne Feinstein and hubbie have made a pile from also helping out the Chinese who returned the favour by spying on her for years.

Finally, there's the Clintons. I would wager to bet that even the most fanatical of their devotees (unless the Clintons pay them of course) laugh along with all of us at how they have become a byword for influence peddling. Whether it was the Lincoln Bedroom, the White House Phone Bank, the Commodities Trade, the Buddhist Shrine, the Russian Uranium Concession ($143 million changed hands from that deal alone - gasp!), the remarkable speakers' fees both rake in and the Pay for Play Operation Madam turned her State Department into for their Foundation, these two have been selling the USA by the pound since they first darkened Arkansas and Washington's corridors of power. All this no doubt to save them from being poverty stricken after leaving the White House.

The point of all of this is: if Donald Trump needs to be removed from office for calling for a corrupt country to investigate a definitively corrupt American official who just happens to be his putative front running rival for the Presidency "or else", than all the other people who I just mentioned in this article should be removed from office, disqualified from holding office and/or put in jail this instant. There's been much disturbing talk about the criminalization of political opponents by such as Schiff (whose kick is the abuse of power rather than money as I will detail more hopefully in another blog) using impeachment. The great thing about most politicians when it comes to "personal gain", you don't have to criminalize them when they already are.

They that served themselves not their voters dare not speak!

(For more detail on the moneymaking antics of the US political elite, I recommend highly,"Throw Them All Out!" by investigative reporter, Peter Schweizer who once described Biden as the most corrupt Veep in US history.)

A hail and a warning

All Hail, Emperor Boris! You have done an amazing thing. You have saved and restored trust in democracy and won a great triple victory of historic proportions against the odds and the downright hatred of most of the elite of your country. You have won bigger than any Tory PM since Thatcher, seen the Labour have its worst result since 1935 losing many seats for the first time ever. You have united a party that when you found it 5 months ago was a burning divided mutinous hulk. You got a Deal with Europe that everyone said would be impossible. You have captured the imagination of the Nation in a way that no one has done since Blairmania.

But, a warning before your Triumph's celebration is complete - all such glory is fleeting. Already, the Wet, One Nation, Secret Remainer Losers that almost destroyed the most successful party in history, nearly ruined Britain's democracy and eviscerated the People's trust in government are trying to inveigle their way into your counsels. Do not listen to their siren song of compromise, timorousness and non-conservatism. Only you can maintain the new coalition you have built for true conservative values. Only you can show worker and boss how their success is wrapped up with each other and with liberal economics. Only you can show how Brexit is not a threat to us but a great and rewarding opportunity.

Stick by your guns and be yourself. It's worked so far. And remember you are PM of the whole country now, not London or Scotland. Govern accordingly and you will press home even greater success than this.

Horror-witz

Does Inspector General Horowitz want us to believe that these people had superpowers that somehow made it possible for them to discharge their highly sensitive and dangerous powers and responsibilities toward some one they hated, when they had the power to crush him, in an evenhanded manner? I certainly could not do it and would have recused myself for that reason precisely. Why didn't they?

The IG relies completely on the word of these people when he concludes that he "found" no testimonial or documentary evidence that the FISA investigation was initiated due to partisan political bias. Now you are asked, even without there being any career or liberty risk to you admitting you are, whether you are biased about anything. Your, my, everyone's answer will be "No! A thousand times no, How could you think that of me?" And with that all too obvious analogy we see exactly what is the value of Mr. Horowitz's conclusions on political bias in the FBI. Garbage in, Garbage out.

British Election: What Just Happened?

First thoughts about the Brexmas Election: How about the polling firm Survation! This amazing firm was the only company that had the results exactly right in the last UK general election, 2017, a very upsetting and unpredictable affair indeed. Similarly they were one of only two companies to get the equally unpredictable 2015 election right. On both occasions, the numbers were almost spot on and the only company to really come close to the right results.

This time: Survation said: Tories 45, Lab 34, LibDem 9, SNP 4, Brexit 3. The real result: Tories 43, Lab 33, LibDem 11, SNP 4, Brexit 2! It gave me great comfort just before the Polls closed to see their prediction. I did not misplace my trust. If anyone needs to do any sort of market research for anything, they should hire this remarkable soothsayer of a Pollster.

Darkening an otherwise brilliant and famous victory not only for Johnson and Tories but for the Nation and their democracy was the relentless gracelessness of their opponents in the media and Westminster. From the Leaders who lost right down to the most obscure commentator or flack, there was a resolute systematic (to the point where it was almost like they were programmed Borg style to groupthink on this) refusal to congratulate their vanquishers and an attempt to portray the whole thing as a tragedy for the People - er, the same people who wrought all this grief by voting against them. Really, these ARE English people, right? Aren't they supposed to be polite almost to an excruciating fault? Instead, they were rude and full of sour grapes. Certainly few, except for a few like the female analyst for SKY TV, seemed predisposed to give the PM the credit he overwhelmingly earned and deserved for pulling off the triple miracle of uniting his Party, getting a new deal with Europe and winning a majority election victory to get Brexit done. It is sad and pathetic. Some one said that the Labour Party will have to undergo analysis. Indeed. And, in light of their bizarre behaviour before during and at the end of this campaign,  it should be lying on a couch with a psychiatrist.

Another loathsome theme of last night - there will be more calls for more referenda not only in Scotland where the hideous Sturgeon and her mob have won a landslide and Northern Ireland where the Nationalists outnumber the Unionists by one seat. If I had been on a panel for this, I would have said...something that cannot be printed. Suffice it to say that, if those cruds in the Sinful Bane and the Scottish Gits Party want another referendum from Boris, they can wait until Boris learns to fly without a zipwire.

And that reminds me. Is it my imagination or is it that every time we win a stonking majority, we are told, one, we do not have a real mandate, two, we need to compromise or three, all those new voters will want us to stop being conservative. Again, fat chance. I trust Boris. Every time they've said he was going to foul up, he proved them spectacularly wrong. They will be wrong about his path in the next four years and I will follow him proudly wherever he takes us.

Finally, there was the strange spectacle of the dance around. What do I mean by that? I watched 7 and a half hours of coverage by LBC and SKY of the election and not once did I hear anyone on those programs mention Corbyn and the :Labour Party's anti-Semitism problem. They even dared to speculate about whether Johnson might be racist based on his old writings instead. My favourite disfunctional moment was when they wondered out loud why people could not "In good conscience" vote for Corbyn and then did not bother to actually mention the obvious, voluminously documented reasons why - anti-semitism, coddling terrorists, cozying up to the enemies of the UK, proposing a Marxist takeover of the economy and. above all. not really liking his own country.

Most awkward moment of the night and frankly creepy was watching Sturgeon doing an Elaine from Seinfeld victory dance when she heard that the hapless Jo Swinson lost her seat. Ooooh, what a horrific person!

PS:  I am especially thrilled that the Jews of Britain (for now) may rest easy that the disgraceful and dangerous Corbyn and his ilk will not darken the doors of power in this country. God bless you and keep you...far away from them!

Brief This!

One obvious sign that the whole Russian investigation was a fraud and a hoax: the CIA Director briefed the Russians on the Russian Meddling that the US claimed to have found twice and the POTUS once but NOT Trump and his campaign! They decided not to brief Trump because they were out to get him. And...when have you ever heard of the US Govt informing the Russians first and only when they know of a real Russian spy ring?

My Question for Horowitz is: Who is responsible? Apparently no one at a high pay grade when it should be the opposite: they should be the most responsible of all. The other Question: When will you or anyone else in the FBI apologize not only to the POTUS but the People for letting down them, your bosses, repeatedly?

My Question for all that were involved in this Crossfire Hurricane "operation": When you know as early as September, 2016 that there was nothing to this theory of yours about Trump/ Russian spying, why did you not then immediately cancel the operation?

Good question by a Rush listener which I would like to ask Horowitz: What do you think the odds would be of 17 "systematic failures" occurring all at once all against the POTUS and his Campaign and then those same mistakes being repeated 3 more times? Wouldn't those odds be akin to those militating against you winning a lottery? Do you think we are children when you ask us to believe that it was all a planet-aligning coincidence?

Question for the Press: Isn't the question of "bias" (even though it is obvious to all but those blinkered by their hate of Trump) a red herring? In other words, isn't it possible to be corruptly trying to undermine Trump and amass power to yourself and not give a tinker's damn about politics?

Have Not Nation Or How to Avoid the LCD

I referred to Canada being a "Have Not Nation" recently in this Blog. Canada has the 9th largest economy in the World. We have a similarly ranked Per Capita Income. We are, when you do not look very closely, the most "like" the Americans of any people in the World. I personally count my blessings daily for being born, raised and living in Canada, ranked 5th highest in "economic freedom" (12 places ahead of the US but lower than Ireland which will be seen to be significant).

What am I talking about then? Am I saying that we are all like the perennial Have Not provinces, Quebec and the Maritimes? No, not yet. But we are in danger of getting there. Argentina used to be the richest nation in the World. Now they're one of the poorest in the Western World. The World is no less competitive a place than it was in the 1930's to the 1960's when Argentina lost her place. It can happen to us in this hyper-competitive, ultra-Globalized World we live in now.

How are we "Have Not"? Let me count the ways. It will not be possible to list them in this one blog which is why this will be another ongoing series. What are the blessings? As uncountable but I'll review - the Rule of Law, relatively low corruption, ease of business starts, still relatively low taxation by comparison to most OECD nations, an intimate integration with the US economy by trade and low crime to name a few.

But the key is the word "relative". We are only ahead in quality of life and economically in some metrics because our competitors are so bad and because of the enormous cornucopia and treasure house we sit on in natural resources and space. This is already changing, especially compared to the US both our biggest trading partner and our biggest competitor. The chief area of Have Not is not in public services (the basket of goods that the Equalization Formula is based on in deciding who is Have Not). We have at least as good public services as other Western nations do and the US (although the medical and post secondary education systems we get for the money we pay are arguably inferior to theirs).

We are Have Not simply because we make less money than the US does. They make $65000.00 per year per capita. We make $43000.00. Yes, the Americans now make fully 50% more than we do every year. It is not the only way we are deprived compared to the US but it is the most important way and it is the root of our deprivation in many other areas and those other deprivations contribute to our principal lack - money. What is more it is really the main thing most ordinary people worry or care about. 

Are we as good or better than nearly every other nation in the World? Yes. But that is irrelevant when we are so far behind our closest and biggest ally, partner and trader. All of our politicians should be talking all of the time about this comparative lack and yet none of them do it any of the time. That means we are Have Not in yet another way -  our political leadership.

Every Canadian thus must ask themselves honestly the question: why do the Americans make 50+% more money than we do every year? Until we ask that question, it will be precious hard to cope with, manage and finally begin to solve or reduce the scale of the problems we face in countless other realms. Can we really decline absolutely? We already have our own homegrown example of the relative and then absolute decline that Argentina has seen occurring in Canada. 

Ontario used to be the economic engine of Canada, its unchallenged leader in all departments. It was the classic Have Province of Have Provinces. It has been claiming Have Not status since 2009. More not less provinces are have not since the equalization regime was first brought in. We are all moving then to the Lowest Common Denominator and now even Alberta may be sucked down into it. Until we make our politicians study how we arrived at this pass, we will simply be moving on to the same relative and absolute decline. 

Our natural resources will not rescue us either. Iran, Argentina and Venezuela all have massive natural resources and they are some of the poorest nations. Ireland, Singapore and Hong Kong have nothing and are leading us now. As I come back to this theme, we will not only look at the other critical ways we are have not but at how nations like that have moved out of that category and better.

It's Politics

In article Number 65 of the Federalist Papers, the divine Alexander Hamilton aka "Publius" explains the reasoning of the Founders behind the Constitution's device for Impeachment As expected, he notes that the system was inspired by the British Parliament's impeachment process for wayward executive officers or "King's Men".  In it, the House of Commons acted as the Grand Jury and preferred the bill of indictment for impeachment to the House of Lords who held the trial and acted as the "petit" jury that would deliver a verdict.

Similarly, the House of Representatives prefers the indictment and the Senate presided over by the Chief Justice holds the trial. But above all, even though impeachment could simply arise from abuses of power that could be simply called "misconduct", in the end POLITICS decided this matter just as sure as both juries involved in the process were elected by the People. Hamilton's explanation of the system and how it should work rings true through the ages as if it were written today in an Op-Ed. That's why the men who made this thing were geniuses.

However, he also warns that the Founders took a calculated risk in leaving the process in the hands of the democratically elected: the legislators may then use the impeachment process as a weapon against their political enemies rather than as a check and oversight on real abuses of power. In other words as Professor Turley said this week, the process becomes the abuse of power.This had happened in the Whig Ascendancy period in England after the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and the Founders thus would have known the risk that was run. It is why as Publius explains, many called for the whole process to be controlled by the far less political, independent, dispassionate judiciary.

Sadly, the Trump impeachment process such as it is seems to have set a precedent for precisely what the Founders feared, impeachment as a political weapon. But surely, the four law professors called in this hellish procedure would have had to agree if asked: "Isn't this process essentially political so that what you have to say about what is or is not impeachable is quite irrelevant? Either the Public support impeachment or they do not. If they do not, all the argument about what is impeachable will be for naught." For example, if there is the oublic support for it, the POTUS could be impeached for jaywalking let alone what we may think of as "high crimes and misdemeanors". What is one Democrat's abuse of power is another Republican's "perfect call", etc., etc.

For authority for this assumption, we can turn to two impeccable sources beside the Federalist Founding Fathers. First, Andrew McCarthy, a US Attorney who wrote a whole book outlining in excruciating detail and proving a full bill of indictment against Barack Obama but noted it would not happen as there was not the political support for it. Second, a Law Professor named Gerhart who testified that the impeachment of Bill Clinton (who was found guilty of 11 crimes) should not proceed because it did not have bipartisan support. He was one of the law professors who just testified on Wednesday that Trump should be impeached without any accepted crime even though not a single Republican congressman has voted for it!

It's politics...

I'm insulted

According to the New York Times, President Trump has insulted 538 people in his career. If this is true, it is also true that almost certainly all 538 (hey isn't that the total electoral votes, too? is that a Freudian thing by NYT?) of Trump's insults over time (except for the relatively pampered Wannabes on the Apprentice) have been aimed at either the rich, the powerful or the famous and titled or a combination of those. His most likely opponent however is an Equal Opportunity Insulter.

If I had been the "fat" 83 year old Liberal Democrat man that Biden showed his execrable Noblesse oblige to, I would have said:"I doubt you have ever applied for a job outside of politics but I have and I can tell you that what you are doing is simply applying for a job that happens to be the POTUS and I happen to be one of your potential bosses. Now, I ask you, would you ever talk the way you have just talked to me to a person you were applying to for a job?"

Trump-hating Law Professor Karlan (who appears to be have been comatose during the Obama era when he give exec.orders that even he said would "make him a king") warned about not letting a president think he is a monarch. I suggest that she watch that video of Biden in Iowa 4 with that voter to see what a US politician's royal pretensions can really look like.

Dear Mona

Another ongoing feature of this BLOG will be "dear Mona". I refer to the Honourable Madame Mona Fortier, MP, PC, who is our first (and hopefully the last) Minister of Middle Class Prosperity. If there is any case of "the Lady protesting too much" in our politics it has to be the creation and filling of this position. However, I always want to help. Therefore the Dear Mona column will routinely provide ideas, usually one or two at a time. It seems that one column with ten ideas would take too long for the no doubt very busy minister to digest readily and, as Oscar Levant said, "So much time, so little to do."

So let's start with the Inaugural edition, shall we?

Dear Mona: (please inform me asap if you are offended by such an intimate presumption on my part but I thought you would not be as you are almost certainly a Woman of the People. How else could the PM have made you in charge of our prosperity? If not, I will be saddened but will hereinafter refer to you as "Madame Minister".)

As you start in your no doubt challenging post, I humbly propose two ideas to start with. One you might call "tongue in cheek" although you never know where any idea might take you. The other is from my wife who is about as unprosperously middle class as it gets and it is definitely not unserious. At least, I would not tell that to her face:

1. Call the Reverend Joel Osteen and consult him on his "Gospel of Prosperity". He may inspire you as he has inspired so many who view middle class prosperity, like you do, as veritably a religion. He also may have some tax tips for you - he saved $50 million from the IRS - "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's unless you can get a refund." With Osteen, you get your own soul keeper, guru and confessor all wrapped into one. You can even appeal to all those people out there who take this God stuff seriously by claiming a man of the cloth shares your vision. I sense, too, that the Reverend is the PM's kind of guy. Thus you achieve the ministry's goals (er, yours not Osteen's), make yourself an evangelist of the bourgeoisie AND get brownie points with the PM who is always looking to pal around with guys who are mystic and faddish.

2. Cut all the tax and employee contribution withholdings of all workers by 10%. Ok, it seems butt simple, maybe too simple, even for the Treasury clerks, Morneau or certainly the PM to understand. But, my wife told me to tell you this and I'm not going to mess with her and I would advise strongly that you don't either. 

So that's a start. There will be more to come. But I thought that this was enough food for thought that it looks a veritable buffet compared to the bread and water those Finance stooges have got you on. Remember, your job is to be so successful that we do not have to ever have such a transparently obviously politicized sop of a ministry like yours ever created ever again. The best thing you can do is to make yourself obsolete, redundant and surplus to requirements asap!

Good Luck in the meantime and remember that those people behind you laughing in the halls are not talking about you. Really. Seriously. Say "Hi!" to the PM and Bill and recall...

It is Now 192 days until the time will run out to Kill Quebec's Bill 21 with a Federal Bill of Disallowance.

Schadenfreude

It is a bad sign when German savers now must pay the bank for them to hold their deposits. It means their interest rates are negative which is just another way of saying that the Bailiff of Greece is now economically under water. Worse, the German saver needs to get permission to withdraw his deposits. Which indubitively means that the German saver will not be a German saver for much longer.

What comes up must go up

It is telling that, in an article that my wife described to me that says that grocery costs are going up almost $500, that it did not even come close to looking at the causes. It suggested bogus causes like restrictions on our exports (!), plastic packaging and climate change. But it took a commentator on the article to point out the only cause that makes direct sense - the carbon tax. It is the only thing that came into effect this year. All the other causes, even if they were less than bogus, arose long before the spike in food costs arrived. It is a sign of both the economic ignorance of our press and its complete and utter abject surrender and obeisance to the Climate Cult and its high priest here, the PM. 

BTW - if the other theories are right, why don't the Americans face anything like the same hit? Probably because they have a free market in food and energy and no carbon tax or gas taxes to speak of for that matter. But I'm afraid that again I we gave an answer which our elite are apparently unaware of to a question they don't want to ask.. It should have been self evident to all but Liberal Party flaks and Green fanatics that oil is in everything we consume, especially food, either for its manufacture or for its delivery and the politicians who thought we should believe otherwise. Therefore, the price of all those things would go up as the inputs wended their way through the industrial and commercial chain without hope of rebate. But alas, ignorance leads to want.

Irony of ironies about this story - it came from the Edmonton Journal.

Canary

Lord Clark once said that he judged a civilization by how it treated its Jews and its women. Well, it would appear that the Labour Party stands badly judged on both counts. No less than 11 times, Corbyn was found in a confidential investigative report to have PERSONALLY been behind acts of anti-semitism.  No less than two Jewish female MP's (including one that was pregnant at the time)  in his own party were heckled, assaulted and hounded from his Party Conferences while he on one of the occasions had a laugh with one of the harassers. 

But it occurs to me that the larger warning is for us all. When the Jew is persecuted, we all usually end up suffering as the anti-semitic tyrant tires of the sport and goes after us all to sate his insatiable appetite for power, control and hate. In that sense, the Jew is the canary in the mine of our society. We must at all costs not let ravenous cats like Corbyn swallow it.

Grand Bargain, the Fifth

Canada spends only 1.25% of GNP on Defence according to that Trump-leaning org, the World Bank. But it also spends less than the average of .31% for foreign aid, a Scroogelike .26. Sweden and Denmark spend 4 times that much. How about another Grand Bargain that the Left and the Right can love: we finally increase Defence Spending to 2% as required by NATO and foreign aid spending to .5% (or still only half what the Scandinavians do. And all of this new lolly would be tied to human rights and proper accounting in the case of the aid and proper auditing, privatized procurement and off the shelf weapons buys in the case of the extra Defence spending to please the fiscal hawks. Oh, BTW, look at the West and the Maritimes have something to both celebrate at the same time for once - the revival, reinforcement and replenishment of their Forces bases and communities. We are told that The World needs more Canada. Time to pay for it in a way that should please all interests in our cacaphonous country.

Have Not Nation

The interesting Bill Carroll of CFRA commented on the headline that an American family pays $2500 per year on Health Care. Instead of taking the occasion to trumpet how smug we are with our "free" health system he made the seemingly obvious point that we pay for it somehow usually through taxes and are paying for unlisted services in any case in addition. He then went on to make the more surprising proposal that we adopt what every other country except us and the UK have - a mixed system. However, he went on to suggest that our public system only be for the poor and that we pay for our own insurance otherwise. I'm impressed.

Although, the real headline is this: in our increasingly Have Not country, we now earn about 33% less than the Americans. The total part of their pay of 62-65000 represented by health is 4%. If we are paying at least that much in taxes for ours, it means 6-7% of our 43000. Meanwhile their 2500 pays for a much better system (no wait times, no doctor shortages, the best drugs and facilities in the world) and ours does not. Also, they are already paying thousands less every year than us for everything from cars to airline tickets to cell phones to milk bags.

Kudos to Carroll for thinking outside the box on an issue that is taboo for our politicians (another thing we have not - real debates about the biggest issues). But, I wonder if even Carroll let alone the average low paid Canadian realizes how we trail the Americans in (as Piers Morgan put it) in every economic and also several social metrics. I've no doubt that, if Canadians were polled about the issue, they would guess we earn at least as much as the Americans. And I suspect that is just how our low-performing, mediocre, self-serving politicians like it.

And it's now 193 days to go for Disallowance of Bill 21...

(I will be talking more about my new theme of our Have Not Nation in a future blog)

Left Philosophy

Strange how on the Left, the State has no place in the bedrooms of the Nation but should be in every other room of our lives. Similarly, a propos the Left, every government department's budget needs to grow ad infinitum, except for Defence, of course.

KaMALa

The recently departed candidate for President, Kamala Harris used to love talking constantly about how she wanted to "Speak Truth". I find that people who actually do speak the truth don't waste their time talking about it. It's their way of life. If you really are speaking truth, you usually do it without having to speak or think about it.

Bill Carroll, Chapter Too

Bill Carroll of the CFRA also wanted us to know that he did not vote Tory because of Andrew Scheer but because of his Conservative MP, Poilievre, "a good man" by Carroll's account. The obvious implicit and explicit verdict from his honour Mr. Justice Carroll - Andrew Scheer is a bad man. Why? Because he is "just good with same sex marriage". He does not whole heartedly embrace it.

Now, it should be said that Scheer is a Catholic and as such appears to take his Church's teachings seriously that marriage is between a man and a woman and not otherwise. Further, he believes his immortal soul would be jeopardized if he took the opposite position. He believes as I do that the price of participation in public life in a free and democratic society should not be the placing of your personal faith and its convictions into some sort of lockbox only to be opened on Remembrance Day or on other occasions when you are called on to pray publicly, such as a terorrist attack, a school shooting or a natural or manmade disaster.

But, even if you do not happen to share Mr. Scheer's beliefs and wish religion to be separate from the state and absent from the public square, ethics and morals still abide. Would we not prefer a man who sticks by his convictions while not foisting them on others to hold great office rather than one who would and does throw his faith (the PM, too, is a Catholic) under the bus for political expediency and makes others do the same or leave his party? Mr. Carroll if you prefer the latter sort of person to govern us, I pity you.

Forgiveness or the PC Reign of Terror we live under

Amongst the sad rants of one Bill Carroll of CFRA was his anger that the Calgary Flames had allowed its coach, Peters, to resign instead of firing him and the NHL suspending him from hockey for using a racial epithet against an athlete ten years ago. In Mr. Carroll's world of the avenging angel of righteousness there is no place for one simple concept: forgiveness and its penitentiary handmaid - proportionality. Would any of us think it would be right for us to be fired for a matter that happened a decade ago rather than simply straitened by a warning, a fine, a suspension without pay or some such other penalty that balanced justice, offence and decency in equal measures? Is that what the athlete wanted?

Now first let me get this straight. I have never used a racial, ethnic or religious epithet against anyone orally or in writing in my entire life. I hate racism in all its forms and will always assist those who wish to denounce it and, yes, punish it, so that it does not dwell in majesty in any sector of our life. Mind, I would also not carry on in black face or fire native women for simply standing up for what is right. But I also happen not to think, unlike Mr. Carroll, Mr. Trudeau and many others of the elite, powerful influential sort, that the transgressor in these matters will always learn more and be all the more chastened when he sees us deal with him in a generous, gracious, compassionate and humane way.

By doing so, we show how much bigger we are than the tiny person who commits such errors. That's one of the reasons we're world renowned - not for our thirsty desire for revenge but for our honest broker attitude of "live and let live" and tolerance even for the intolerable. After all, did we not prove it in this last election writ large - we allowed the PM to keep his job despite several patently racist, misogynist and insensitive acts but only after he was denied the absolute power he had before.

I call for the same standard for Peters as for Trudeau. What is more I promise I  would call for the same standard for Don Cherry, too, as for a professor at the University of Alberta, MacDonald, who recently called the Hoblomor a hoax perpetrated by the Ukrainian Canadian community. I just want fairness and proportionality for all regardless of the transgression they perpetrate (as long as of course they were not dishonest about it or proven to be chronic incurable  recidivist offenders). That's the Canadian Way. 

Say no to the PC Reign of Terror and show confidence in your good offices that you do not have to destroy a person's life just to prove them.

The Irish Question

This is not about the IRA or the long benighted history of Anglo-Irish relations from Cromwell to Brexit. This is really about us. More specifically, how are the following facts possible:

UK - $43000 per capita income;

Canada - $46000 per capita income;

Ireland - $62000 per capita income; and,

US - $65000 per capita income (a roughly $4000 improvement since 2017 alone)?

Notice that Ireland is only about 7% the size of the UK by population as we are about 10% of the US. We have been effectively at peace with the US since the late 1860's and an independent country since then as well. Ireland did not become a Free State until 1923 and did not finally find a comprehensive peace with the UK until 1998. They have had a fraught relationship at best and a murderous, treacherous one at worst with the UK. We have, except for some short periods of mutual high level hostility, had one of the most intimate closest friendships any two nations have had in history.

Further, until recently, Ireland was notoriously poor and known world wide for its chief export - people. We have been mostly known round the world as a rich, comfortable place that attracts people. Ireland has no resources except people, wool, beer and gorgeous landscapes. We sit on top of a treasure house of nearly every major resource a nation could need so that we export these as we have too few people to use it all here and have become wealthy as a result.

Why then does Ireland exceed the UK,  a nation of many more people and resources than it by 50% in per capita income but we trail the US by the same proportion? Our politicians should be asking that question every day and cogitating on just what the answers may be. The solution may start with taxes. Our corporate rate of tax is higher than that of Ireland as is the UK's. When allowing for state and provincial rates (not a factor for the UK and Eire as they are unitary states), the US corporate rate was recently reduced so that it is now better than our effective rate. Ireland's top rate and basic rate of personal income tax are lower than ours and the UK.

Ireland has got control of its spending to support the low taxation. It has made itself a haven and a worker supply for high tech foreign companies. Its total government spending is 27% of the gnp. Ours is 44% and we cannot get control of our deficits. Our debt is over two trillion dollars or 100% of gnp.  Theirs is 68%. We have seen foreign direct investment in our country decline while theirs has seen it soar for the reasons already stated. There are other aspects to this to study. We are a nation with problems that the Irish do not face: natives, fiscal federalism and a heavy dependence on revenue from natural resources.  But one big one, according to  the Heritage Foundation, that the Irish have licked that we are burdened with is high regulation and labour costs. 

However, at the very least, our leadership here (and in the UK for that matter) should be inquiring into why the Irish lead us and the UK while we trail the US in the central measure of economic health and prowess. Of course, we will also want to find out why the US trounce us in this remorseless contest in the global economy we live in today. This is especially urgent as we have a much more important relationship with the US than with either the UK or Ireland. But, we definitely should ask the Irish for some tips about how to win that competition, which should be easier for us than it was for the Irish known mainly as the supplier of maids for the UK only 20 years ago.

The Irish Question and its complete absence from the recent election campaign is a sad reminder that, as with so many important and pressing matters facing Canada, our leaders do not even seem to know what the questions are let alone the answers. One answer here may lie in the famous saying of a  great Irishman:"I have nothing to declare but my genius". Perhaps (as so many petrostates have sadly proven), it's not enough to have lots of natural resources to prosper. You need brains. Time to set up that Royal Commission into why the Yanks and the Irish do better than us asap!

Revenue biased

Recall when they said that the carbon taxes would be "revenue neutral". Until you verify that and have it practically guaranteed in a constitutional amendment, believing that was tantamount to believing in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or an honest politician. None of these taxes have stayed neutral. Indeed, we were told that these taxes would have to be revenue neutral or it would be like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Instead, both Peter and Paul were robbed at the same time!

Ever notice...?

Did you ever notice that when politicians talk about "austerity", they are almost always talking about less or restricted spending. E.G.: Johnson recently telling the Spectator that austerity "wasn't the way to go which meant his manifesto was crammed full of more spending of all types (except Defence, as usual) but precious little for tax relief. A promise in Boris' leadership to increase the threshold for the inheritance tax was junked at the Conference. Another promise from his Leadership race to increase the threshold for the top bracket seems to have slipped beneath the waves of the "Play it safe", "Anti-austerity" Manifesto. A promise to reduce the Corporate tax by a whopping two percentage points DOA at the Manifesto. Finally, an "accidentally" leaked promise to increase the threshold for National Insurance contributions to save 500 pounds evaporated to only an "ambition" to do so beyond 100. What was left over were a few targeted business rate cuts (sound familiar?).

The PM talks a good game about how post-Brexit, the UK will be unleashed like a "Lion from a cage". If these paltry piecemeals are any indication, that Lion will be declawed before he gets out of his cage. The UK needed desperately to become more competitive and productive (at least as much as say Ireland) before Brexit was a dream. It will need to do so all the more as an independent trading player again. 

What is infuriating is that no politician, media member or academic close at hand seems to understand that the real "austerity" is when taxpayers are paying a 20% VAT, a 45% top rate and 25% basic rate of income tax and countless other taxes and compliance costs so that the average UK business or individual is paying almost half of their pay packet or profits to government. Worse, this austerity poses a far greater harm to the UK economy and its capacity to survive and thrive in a post-Brexit globalized World. It is a precious littleconsolation for the benighted UK taxpayer that every other major industrialized nation (with the conspicuous exception of the US) is as bad or worse off and has elites who (hardly themselves in pain) also view "austerity" as when they cannot take more of your money to pay for their pet projects.

The Irish Question

...is: If Ireland is more prosperous than the UK, than how come Canada is less prosperous than the US?

Jesus wept

Remember when we evinced outrage that our Leaders cynically threw religious tolerance under the bus by not even pledging to do anything about Bill 21 except maybe intervene in the court case (meaning do nothing)? H double hockey sticks, they wouldn't even condemn it except for our Martyr of the Blackface and Apoligizer in Chief whose commitment to such issues we have seen is skin deep. Well Angus Reid reports that 51% say that Scheer's faith hurt him in the campaign and 24% say Singh's did. 

It seems like religious bigotry is an influenza that's catching. But, we all know deep down that those "racist reactionaries", Kenney and Ford would never get caught dead introducing a Bill 21 in their provinces. If that makes them religious fanatics, amen to that!

The whole situation should make every Canadian deeply ashamed as I am. Will Trudeau be apologizing to the devout of Quebec for the persecution he could stop now (until June) and did not? Who will set up a time clock for how many days there are left for the Disallowance of Bill 21? I think I will. Assuming June 15 as the deadline - the clock starts at exactly 200 and it's ticking. Over to you, Prime Minister...

Scheer and Pearson

If Rex Murphy is right, Andrew Scheer is doomed. That is, if he cannot change as a man and as a leader, he cannot win. But, even though I always agree with Rex on nearly everything, I disagree with the implicit premise of his recent analysis of Scheer - that he must change as a person in his ability to do politics and its black arts to survive. I believe that he can be rescued by ideas with only a slight change in his mien. My precedent for believing this is Mike Pearson.

In 1958, Pearson easily won the leadership of the Liberal Party after the St Laurent government was defeated in an upset by Diefenbaker's PC Party in 1957. Pearson then arrogantly and foolishly demanded that Dief call an election. The PM obliged and went on to destroy Pearson's Liberals in a massive landslide. Pearson was widely seen as a poor campaigner especially compared to that arch wizard of campaigns, John George Diefenbaker of the cobalt eyed Vision of the North. 

Many no doubt called for his instant ouster, but Pearson stuck it out. The first thing he did was to call a policy "Thinkers" conference at Queens University in Kingston in 1960. There with some of the most sparkling best and the brightest wonks of all time like Tom Kent and Mitchell Sharp, Pearson rebuilt not the machinery of the Liberal Party (although that would come) but its ideas. There was born the strong Canadian national and social agenda that became the backbone of the landmark policies Mike successfully introduced as PM - CPP, the Canada Health Act, the Auto Pact, biculturalism, the new flag, Armed Forces unification and many others that dominated national political debate in the next three decades.

There was still a long road to walk. Pearson lost another election in 1962 and only won two more minority governments before retiring in 1968. But, he overcame his natural personal awkwardness with election campaigning and debate in the Commons and his "wimpy" persona to deliver results in barely 5 years of minority government such as no one had seen before nor will likely see again. He even managed to attract a bevy of star candidates who were to fill the front bench of Liberal governments for over 30 years - Hellyer, Martin, Sharp, Trudeau, Marchand, Pelletier, Chretien, Turner, Lamarsh and many others.

But the real thing that attracted voters, star ministers and bipartisan support in the House to his side was ideas - bold, fresh, compelling and popular ideas. Scheer is if anything better off than Pearson was a this point. Like Pearson, he has an impressive background. Pearson won a Nobel Prize for Peace while Scheer was Speaker of the House. But, unlike Pearson, he has a larger caucus in the House, actually won the popular vote last time and does not face a PM with anything like the magnetic power of a Dief. 

If Scheer makes a clarion call to thinkers from all walks of life on our side and the Members of the Party to hold a similar deepthink conference (and by the way why not in Kingston again?), he will attract the team he needs to win victory in the next election (and still be one up on Pearson). This conference can be the foundation upon which his comeback is built. The last thing he or the Party should do is hope that by some makeover or some further inane retreat from conservative values it can win the People's confidence. Success starts with good ideas which will make Scheer not just a successful Leader but a successful Prime Minister. It might even result in a more successful Canada.

Fwd: Trump U.

Is it time, in light of the overwhelming evidence of the amazing success of Trumponomics, for our brilliant leadership here to think about aping it? Really, can we not do as well as the Americans in the income department? Instead of earning 25% less than the Americans, could we try for only 10% less. Or is it fantasy to ask us to do better? The first of the one thousand steps is to read Trump's book. 

No, not The Art of the Deal:  his unbelievably shining economic record from January 20, 2017 to date. And finally, why is it that not a single candidate for MP, let alone the donkey herd known as the Party Leaders, or their interrogators from the Press, thought to discuss how crappy our economics are compared to the US. our number one trading partner and economic mate? Every Canadian politician should be talking and thinking about this gap 24/7 and they don't even know it exists. Shame!

Four Fingers of Fate

In the aftermath of the election, thoughts turn to something that should have been discussed during that execrable campaign - policy! In a land where the Prophet of Politics is Kim "Election Campaigns are no time to talk about policy" Campbell , this is sadly no shock. Yet, I persist in hoping that in some election campaign perhaps sooner than some think some Leader will actually propose coherent policies relevant to improving the life of Canada and her People. I now offer some ideas for any one willing to read:

1. Tax Reform - Cut half of the Nation's Tax Expenditures. These are deductions, credits, allowances and exemptions and other tax breaks that go to individuals and business. The value of them is estimated by some to be worth about 7% of GNP or half again of official government spending! Take the saved costs of lost revenue and eliminate all individual tax brackets save two - 15% for up to $100000.00 (after a tax free personal allowance retained of $20000) and 25% for above. RRSP's, TSA's, RRIF's and RESP's would be retained only if the Capital Gains Tax was not eliminated. Most Canadians would experience a tax cut and some would be removed from the rolls. Best, the small start up entrepreneurs and business that employ us, provide us with new goods that improve our standard of living and make our economy tic will be supercharged in their incentives to work and build (especially if we eliminate the CGT and reduce the corporate rate);

2. Balance the Budget - Freeze spending after COLA for 4 years. The resultant savings would eliminate the deficit as soon as in two years or no later than four assuming a 1.5%-3% effective reduction in spending from this action, any surplus should go to reducing the debt or taxes. It's exactly how Paul Martin balanced the federal budget in the 90's when we were all told it would never be balanced and it was worse proportionally than it is now;

3. Government for All not the Few - Eliminate all Corporate Welfare. This would typically save enough money to eliminate the Capital Gains Tax and useless Tariffs that collect no excise tax but discourage importers from providing their goods to our consumers (see tax reform above) while protecting narrow commercial interests that, in some cases don't even make the goods thus debarred. The new revenues from #1. and 3. might also be sufficient to halve the corporate tax to about 8%; and,

4. Free Markets - Deregulate Airlines, Banks, Agriculture and Telecomms. A family stands to save thousands, annually, from these reforms or an increase in spending power of about 8% depending on the examples you give for cheaper cellphones, airline tickets, dairy and poultry and bank fees. Better, it will provide consumers (along with the tariff reform) more choice,  service, competition and lower prices in a wide range of goods and services. Finally, it should not cost the Taxpayer a single cent except to publish the repealing laws;

The result of these reforms would be an economic boom not witnessed since the 90's but really only last seen in the fifties and sixties. Overnight, We would be more competitive and 

productive than the United States. As mentioned earlier, all would see their take home pay increased either by tax cuts or deregulation or a combination of both. The standard of living would also soar. By this objective reform, our resources as a nation would be dedicated to the things that we are best at and directed away from the things we are bad at. Our youth would see the creation of new value-added jobs that would ensure a bright future repeated generation after generation. Further, our social programs and defences could be enhanced not cut back as the turbocharged boom from the economic and fiscal reforms produces great new sources of revenue and desperately needed capital from here and abroad to pay for our critical shortage of infrastructure. Finally, if done right, these reforms would not have to cost a dollar and again spin more revenue than we had before.

Fwd: Theory of Everything

In thinking of Grand Bargains and other 4 Point Plans (5 year plans?) for making Canada better, I think I may have stumbled on a way to look at Political Economics that may be the way to look at everything. I was inspired by three concepts: first, by the fact that the richer the country, the cleaner it is. Second, by my belief that, if I were a left wing politician, I would propose that the best way to build the "New Jerusalem"  of a socially just society with the benefit laden generous programs it would demand is liberal economics. Third, by the Equalization Formula. It calls for the "equalization" of levels of public services amongst provinces by fiscal transfers by Canada. 

All these concepts point to my syllogism or formula: if you have economic growth and prosperity, you will get good public services. To get economic growth and prosperity, you need liberal economics. That is, low and simple taxes which fall on consumption rather than income, free and deregulated markets and free trade both inside and out. Notice that liberal economics and social justice are not mutually exclusive. You can have a balanced budget and have better and more comprehensive public services without high tax and high spending. 

The boom created by the liberal economic program will create the huge new revenues needed to build your Jerusalem. Indeed, as the economy grows, better jobs become available, standards and quality of life go up and people become wealthier, there is less need of social programs in more people. This means that the existing social programs can be made more generous and effective for the diminishing minority of us that will still need them. A virtuous circle would be created where the better off all are, the better public services would be.

To use a turn on the phrase in the Constitution Act on Equalization: not comparable public services, but better public services through liberal economics!

Humiliated

Back in the day, we were all told that Quebec felt "humiliated" by its exclusion from the Constitutional talks and their results the Act of 1982. However, comes in to view my favourite metaphor for making a point, the Martian observing something from 20000 feet. The Constitution Act includes section 33, the Notwithstanding clause, that leaves all of our rights except Voting to be subjected to striking down by any Federal or Provincial parliament even if ruled violated by their laws (e.g. 101) and Equalization which commits the Federal govt to doling out provincial welfare to the so called have not provinces (far and away the biggest beneficiary - Quebec). Further, no province is required to provide bilingualism (perfectly in line with Quebec's monolingual agenda) and Natural Resources are sacrosanct provincial treasures. If you read this document and did not know that Quebec was "excluded" and refused to sign it, you'd think Rene Levesque had written it himself.

Have-What?

Not the least of the problems with the Equalization Program is the fact that Have-Not does not necessarily mean have not. Does anyone really think that any amount of data will tell us that Quebec is poor? Is oil rich Newfoundland poor anymore? Is Ontario? The reality is that this program is proof positive on a macro economic scale that welfare does not work. With the possible exception of at least initially NFLD and maybe Manitoba, it does not make any province improve or stop being poor. It has not done any better job of this than the Regional Development programs that at first were just for the benighted Maritimes and now are for every region.

 The best equalization program would be if all regions were equally liberal economically. Then we would have no use for this federal taxpayer's dialysis. A Confederation would exist (preferably without trade barriers) then made up of self sufficient provinces that only needed Federal help occasionally and only in an emergency. And all would contribute far more to the cost of Federal programs and projects and their improvement. Perhaps a start would be if the Maritime Provinces dispensed with top rates that effectively tax the wealthiest at almost 70%. Then, I predict (along the lines of when you tax less of it you get more) there would be far more wealthy people in the Maritimes who would buck up public services with revenues.

Unfortunately, even in this Mecca, there is a snake. No matter how better off the poorest get, the richer get richer and therefore the poorest would stay have not. In other words it's not have not it's have less.

The real solution is to just get rid of it (which I believe would not require any constitutional amendment thank God). But that would take a Federal Government with real cahones as it would deny "poor" Quebec some 11 billion dollars a year. In the meantime, I would like to say it's all a poverty trap but that's hard when most of the beneficiaries of it are not really poor.

Scotland the Tentative

Nicola Sturgeon was recently asked by an ITV reporter whether, in light of Scotland's deficit, the UK might be better off without Scotland. Well posed. However, The real question is: would Scots be better off without "Scotland" as we know it - an economic backwater of Socialist pretensions on Westminster's dialysis? If I were a Scot, I would want to declare my independence asap from Sturgeon, her SNP idiots and the Kremlin in Edinburgh they've erected. The first thing I'd do, once getting the Make Scotland Great Again govt elected would be to abolish devolution unilaterally, declare Scotland a Free Enterprise Tax Free Zone and offer the Isle of Skye for Sturgeon and her fellow megalomaniacs to boss around as their own Sheep's Republic (which, no doubt, would then instantly apply for Membership in the EU).

No threat to see here

In a World where we are constantly informed that the main threat to us is (by one of the Impeachment witness's own statement) the declining state of Russia, we are occasionally reminded of the real threat in, I might add, a region far more important to American interests than Europe ever was - China (not mentioned once in the Canadian Military Journal while Russia is everywhere in it). A telling story is of the Chinese Ambassador to the US, who speaks whip good English and went to Johns Hopkins, Yankeesplaining to Bret Baier how those prison camps they've set up for Chinese Muslims are really "training camps" and that people can go home for the Weekends.

This is a reminder not only of the fact that, if the Four want to investigate pure bore Islamaphobia, they should demand to see these camps where a million Chinese Muslims have their heads shaved and are in chains. It is also a reminder of another of the many ways that China's influence is exerted around the World. The Ambassador  has an army of staff, aides, advisors, consultants and lobbyists in the US to help him deliver his insidious message of "soft dictatorship with a capitalist face". But, too obviously, the US does not have such a network in China. Much like commercial trade with China is not truly reciprocal, neither is the trade of ideas.

China has many more non-Yellow Hordes to enable and amplify its message amongst the Media, Academia, the Beltway and above all the Elites. Witness Albright's millions slaving for China, the money the Feinstein's have made while there was a Chinese Bond driving them around, the feckless almost chillingly naive and dangerous apologizing by the Biden's, the Bloomberg's and the Obama's of the World, the NBA sellout and the bizarre musings of such as Tom "Wouldn't it be great if we were China for a day" Friedman. Even our own PM, while waging a battle with the Chinese over the Rule of Law once praised the Chinese kind of oppression. An early maddeningly corrupt example of their influence was the Watergate That Never Was, the Buddhist Shrine scandal, in which a POTUS and his wife almost certainly traded military secrets for campaign donations from China.

The results are clear of the past 20 years of coddling, advocating for, embracing and generally turning a blind eye to China's aggression. They've just gotten bigger, more insidious, more dangerous. More sophisticated and larger armed forces that literally build island bases to menace key Pacific shipping lanes and US allies. Industrial espionage backed up by a systematic policy of trading intellectual property for trade access to China. Enjoying all of the benefits of membership in the WTO without abiding by its rules if inconvenient to them. Oppression of Muslims, Christians, Tibetans, Dissidents and Hong Kong. Bullying and threatening Chinese abroad who dissent and foreigners who produce films or tv shows they do not like and of course basketball executives who say things they do not like. The Belt and Road Initiative that spreads their poisonous "No questions asked" policy of building infrastructure in Africa and Asia in return for their loyalty in the UN and so that they can loot resources for their insatiable economy. These are just a few of the many indicators that alcoholic, clownish, oil-addicted Russia is the Bambi to China's Godzilla when it comes to any foreign threat assessment.

Meanwhile, "Experts" like Vindman and Yovanovich are convinced that the Ukraine is on the "front line" in a terrible fight with the "newly aggressive" but actually declining Russia. Indeed, to hear them US interests and that of the Ukraine are practically one. I was one of the first to bemoan and decry the negligence and immorality of the West's betrayal of the Ukraine in its extremis. My question is, is there a NATO in China? Hasn't there been a NATO in Europe these 70 years and why can't it do more to hold the line in Eastern Europe (like not buying Russian pipelines for a start) so that the US can do more in the Far East, the Pacific which MacArthur rightly dubbed "America's Future"? Isn't it just as if not more likely that, to borrow one of the "Geopolitical Expert's" favourite sayings that, if we don't have someone fighting for us in and around China, we will have to fight them here? (maybe, intellectually, commercially, politically and socially, we already are. Does anyone except a blind shill for "free trade" or China think the "Trade War" with China only just started when Trump took office?)

Right now on the "Front Line" with China is a defanged, economically parlous Japan, a still poor vulnerable Southeast Asia, some students in Hong Kong and a diminishing band of dissidents. Time for the US to turn its vigilant eyes East before it's too late. This will take a systematic effort to overcome the PR blitz and influence peddling operation of the Chinese perhaps with new anti-corruption laws against helping oppression. It will take, to use a favourite Chinese word, the re-education of the American People on the threat. Sadly, that process may have to start first with the re-Orient-ation of bureaucrats, politicians, soldiers and other "experts" on China's dire threat to human rights, security and fair trade.

Chain of command

What is telling and chilling about this, is that all the way through these shenaningans, the instinct of these people is not to warn him, report to him or advise him directly on their concerns. It is to run to either their friends in the Deep State or the Democrat Party and plot and conspire and work to undermine him. It started with the lack of a routine defensive brief for Trump about avoiding Russian contacts, then  it continues with the "partial briefing" by Comey of Trump on the Steele Dossier, and his authority is to this day and ongoing is ignored and shown contempt by them in this tempest in a teapot over the call. Not one of them bothered to talk to him or advise him on any of these matters at any time. Instead, they lie in wait for the time they can say "gotcha" about this POTUS that they, almost as much as the Dems if not more, want out. 

Think Captain Queeg. Even if the commander in chief is really inappropriate or incompetent, you are the more negligent for  not trying to help him stop or be better. And, indeed, a Republican just tried to ask Colonel Vindman who he ultimately reports to in the chain of command and his lawyer refused to let him answer. Christ! He got his commission from the POTUS. He should not have waited for the lawyer to talk. He should have grabbed the mike and said, "Why, the POTUS, of course, our C-in-C!" That he did not is the sort of scary thing that makes 7 Days in May look like a quaint and implausible fable. In the words of the Liberal Democrat Peacenik Detente President that was the target of the Generals' coup in that book/movie, "If you don't like my policy, don't try a coup, run for election!" (and yet this POTUS is actually carrying out the policy of support for the Ukraine they wanted!)

Impeachomania

My question for the Republicans:

How come you didn't question the AMbassador on Friday about how her embassy was immersed in partisan activity against Trump in 2016 and for Clinton and the DNC as documented by the statements of prosecutors (warning off pursuing certain individuals and orgs involved with the Dems and refusing visas to them when they wanted to go to the US to tell the govt about it) and from court (two Ukraine MPs convicted of helping Clinton against Trump)? Surely this would have shone light on why Trump was "crazed" about going after the people who did this in the Ukraine and the real story of foreign collusion in meddling with US elections. Don't tell me you were worried about bullying Mrs. Action Ambassador who had served in so many of the "Badlands" of the World.

My questions for Colonel Vindman (notice by the way that when military officers represent Republican presidential interests, they are demonized but when they attack them, they're heroes who we dare not question. Remember Ollie North?):

Why didn't you go to the President to complain about his "inappropriate" phone call and advise him (isn't that your job, to advise the POTUS?) to cease and desist? As your sense of duty is what brings you here today, Why didn't you fight to make sure, in the name of the nation's interest, it, the call, was not leaked? If you won't resign when a POTUS doesn't do what you like, then do you think the POTUS should resign? Is it true that the Ukrainians waited 55 days for Military aid to be delivered under Trump but they had to wait for three years under Obama for it not to come? How come you didn't complain about Obama's neglect of the Ukraine? How did you, an expert on Ukraine, not know about Biden Burisma (although you did admit that it was a "potential"conflict of interest when asked about it) OR that the President of the Ukraine did not need to be warned to watch out for the Russians!?! If Trump can be impeached for this, why shouldn't Obama and Bush join him in the dock?

United NHS

Politicians in the UK (except the SNP who are determined to break up the UK and then declare an SNHS no doubt) are so obsessed with the National Health Service, you'd think, even in this supposedly watershed election that's supposed to be about BREXIT, that there was little else for them to care about on behalf of their people. Just now, the PM showed he is so intimidated by the wretch Corbyn's warning that Brexit will see the NHS taken over by Donald Trump, Inc. (who would surely "fire" the candystripers, make the ambulances run on time and plate the bedpans in gold if he ever did got a hold of this monopolistic Stalinesque monstrosity), that he sacrificed one of his few Thatcheresque policies to reduce the Corporate tax rate from 19 to 17% to give more more money to an agency that already takes in 300B pounds or 16% of the economy annually.

Does everyone in the UK use the NHS daily? Do they take the NHS to work? Do they go to the NHS to work? Do they shop at the NHS for their food, clothing and shelter? There was a UK once that did not have it and still managed to be the greatest, most powerful nation on earth. Every other nation except maybe Canada gets along without one.  Yet, it would appear having a decent defence system, schools and northern infrastructure are all less important than it let alone having an economy as competitive and productive as, say, Ireland. Maybe, the Heraldists and Protocol experts should get together and confirm a new Head of State and name for the country:

The NHS of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United NHS Kingdom! 

I recall in 1995, when going to a symposium of NHS supremos, an attendee wondered at who won the Cold War. If we finally win Brexit, I hope that we will not be saying as true conservatives,"Is that all there is". Is it too much to hope that, once Brexit is done and he's got a safe majority, that the PM will junk all of this Wet One Nation stuff and bring in a raft of Thatcheresque policies that usher in an economic renaissance for the UK that will make everyone forget about worshipping a social program?

Flesh and Blood

The beginning of the rehabilitation of Andrew Scheer has to start with putting flesh and blood on the bones of that Conservative Declaration he quoted on election night. It was Diefenbaker's Pledge of Allegiance and it goes: 

"I am a Canadian; a free Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind."

What we saw in the late campaign was the complete failure to uphold that heritage by Scheer, the other Leaders, their candidates, worst of all the PM, the Press and, it must be said, all of us. I believe that the sacred mission of Andrew Scheer is not, contrary to the impression we get from the usual suspects in our secular Liberal Press, to bring back theocratic rule to Canada but to give life again to the words of that Diefencreed articulated so simply and perfectly to us 60 years ago next year when our Bill of Rights was made law.

Scheer must make our Credo an every day reality again for all Canadians and, in so doing, can save himself, his Party and conservatism in this country.

Grand Bargain

It is time for a Grand Bargain in this country.

The Leader of the Opposition should propose that he will accept carbon pricing if the Government agrees to replace income tax with consumption tax. The latter may take the form of a super HST like a VAT, A Personal Expenditure Tax, a BBQ tax or a Fun Tax, it does not matter. As long as the array of new, better or higher consumption taxes was enough to make up for most of the loss of revenue from leaving income taxes, it does not matter what form they would take.

It would mean the end of Capital Gains Taxes, Corporate Taxes and Personal Income Taxes. In other words, the end of the taxes that are best suited to impoverish and hobble our economy, innovation and success in any society. It would mean the beginning of relying on consumption taxes that are simpler, fairer, more efficient and easier to enforce and administer. It could be achieved by a gradual, incremental process that should not take longer than the life of one parliamentary term.

The benefits of such an approach backed up by guarantees of certainty and fairness in energy projects and a new super fund to clean up real pollution in Canada would  be manifest. First, the nation would become a magnet for investment and capital such as is not seen except in places like Singapore and Hong Kong. We would be overnight more competitive than the US. Any restriction on consumer activity would likely be lessened by the return of almost a third of most people's money into their pockets.In a word: BOOM!

On the other side of the social ledger, a consumption society would tax the things that hurt the environment the most - pollution, waste, unrecyclable goods, etc. This would make us greener. The wealth from the tax reform would make it easier for us to clean our environment. Not only do we get less of something - pollution - when we tax it more, but as we get more revenue from taxing our economic growers in business less, we will be better able to eliminate our remaining environmental atrocities in our rivers, our harbours and reserves with the Super Fund.

Politically, it would be an opportunity for all of the federalist parties to unite in a great reform. Everyone wins! However, if the other parties do not cooperate, the Conservative Party can build around this Grand Bargain concept as the pillar for a new national agenda oven-ready for the next election which could come sooner than later. It certainly would see Scheer begin to build a much needed image as a bold and imaginative leader of wisdom.

In turn, we will defeat the forces of Separatism by smothering the grievances of Quebec and the West with prosperity and fairness. Above all, we can comply with the draconian requirements of the Paris Accord while not only maintaining our competitive position in the World but greatly enhancing it. We can be a model for environmental custodianship and economic dynamism for the World at the same time. Together with other changes to our economy chiefly via deregulation and free trade inside and out, we can unify Canada in peace and prosperity.

Fwd: Scheer Nonsense

As I write this, the Conservative Parliamentary Party is deciding whether or not under the "Rules" to remove Scheer. Now, I'm not a Scheer Fan (who is?) but the matter seems premature. First, he won the popular vote and  gained 27% in seats while the Liberals lost seats and got only 33% while the NDP were halved and no one is talking about Leader Disposal there. Second, the precedents for waiting until he gets another kick at the can are ample although results of such patience mixed.

Bad examples, TUrner and Stanfield (who got two kicks and almost won on the second try. Turner doubled his caucus). Good: Harris and Harper. There seems ample precedent for being forgiving (and most of the past examples had much worse first tries).

Third, who to replace him with? Really, who is that, especially with mulroney and MacKay apparently counting themselves out?

Fourth and most important, I don't care what the Chong Law or the Caucus rules say, it's profoundly undemocratic (especially when you have an automatic review in April anyway. It took a year and a half to replace Harper. Even if one has to wait until April for the Membership to decide, you'll have a new leader likely no later than a year from now.). In any case, the People, your people, should decide not 120 MP's to remove a duly elected Party Leader barely two weeks after an election. If nothing else will convince a reptile thinking about this, it will be bad political optics. Also, what's stopping Scheer running again for the Leadership if he's removed by them? If people are so sure that he is crap, then it will not be hard to force his review vote (especially as Quebec and Ontario get at least 60% of the votes on this and seem the most disenchanted) down below the 67% Clark got when he decided to step down (and then ran again anyway and damn near got back in).

But the real example for a thinking MP should be Harris. I would explicitly make as a condition of my voting against the immediate removal that he change. Meaning, like Harris, he needs to see that politics is a team sport. He needs to work with his caucus and the membership, as Harris did, to rebuild the platform so that it is coherent, recognizably conservative, simple and deals with the real problems of the country honestly and in a way that is relevant to ordinary people. Harris did it with the COmmon Sense Revolution and won.

Now to be sure as an MP I would not make any ideological demands at this point. The policy direction of the Party should be in the hands of the Leader, his new Team (yes, the present negligent, craven and unimaginative bunch that advised him should go), the Caucus and the Membership.. But Mr. Scheer can and must change starting with a pledge to include the Caucus in all aspects of strategy and policy and ultimately the membership, too, or he should step down for someone else who will and save us all the pain of a long drawn out and ugly leadership war.

If he undertakes this openly, he will easily win the Review but also start the process of giving Canadians a strong, compelling Conservative voice built on those conservative values of freedom and tolerance that he so eloquently extolled on Election Night. Let the New and Improved Scheer begin today!

They don't get it

How do we know that the people in the Ford Government still don't get the need for fiscal restraint (although, to watch or listen to the thinly veiled third party ads for the Liberals that the "Teachers" Unions ran, you would think that they thought of little else) - Caroline Mulroney posted an editorial in the NP calling for more Federal dollars for Ontario's commuters. No doubt this Fed lolly is to be provided by those Federal taxpayers who don't live in Ontario and take the GO train on Mars. Where is this evil genius, Doug, we keep hearing about from Justin who takes candy from Babies, throws heart patients into the streets and burns schools down? Scheer and company are so scared of the Queens Park Bogeyman that it would be easier to frighten them than a 5 year old listening to fireside tales.

Cheap Insults to Our intelligence or Our betters

General Dominic Grieve-ous called the PM's call for an election "blackmail". Now how rotten and cheap can you be to characterize ANY call for democracy as a criminal act? And this from a former Solicitor General!

Insults to the INtelligence - and joining Mr. Grieve in that department is MS. Abbott who vaguely referred to as how having a December election hasn't been held since over a hundred years ago (actually 1923) and that "tells you something". No it doesn't. It tells you that through a string of coincidences, we haven't had one then since then. But, were Decembers less cold back then? Oh my god, another proof of Global Warming!

She went on to suggest that there may have to be legislation to force Johnson not to have No Deal before there's an election. But, wait a sec, couldn't he just get rid of that law if he won? People who listen to [people like this are just insulting themselves and their intelligence wilfully and recklessly.

Two Disasters

After the election, our nation is in danger of waking up to two national disasters - a Trudeau Government Re-elected and a Bloc Quebecois Revived. The only question for a true patriot strong and free is - which would be the worst disaster? 

Let there be no doubt anywhere about this - the BQ can claim there are just "nationalists" as they cunningly appropriate the CAQ agenda and thus hide their wolves' skins in the sheep's clothing of "Quebec First". But they are still separatists in the final analysis and they are likely back to inflict their peculiar brand of "humiliation" not on Quebec but on Canada of clinging to an utterly discredited scheme of archaic tribalism. They advocate a social and economic dead end for most of all the Francophone Quebeckers who ironically from time to time park their vote with their vapid tribunes.

You no doubt detect in my words a certain dismissiveness even mocking of the BQ. Surely, the sad, dismal 26 years of the Bloc have been a sometimes comical, often feckless and usually downright pointless saga. But it should not be forgotten that, after technically and laughably gaining the post of "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition" in our system of government, they came within 50000 votes of helping Quebec to leave this country in just two years. Then in 2008 they almost helped to mount a coup against the democratically elected Government of Canada. Many Canadians have not forgotten that, but the Press seems to be more sanguine about it talking about the prospects of this hideous group of irrelevancies becoming the third party in our Parliament again as if they were talking about Air Canada taking over Air Transat.

But that brings me to the other disaster. Our PM has not only reinvented and reenergized Quebec separatism's agent in Ottawa, he has also ignited the first serious signs of Western  Separatism since the 1980's. The real disaster and the one far worse than the BQ zombie dawn, is the possibility that a man whose chief legacies are these dangerous threats to unity and the breaking of laws and trampling on the Rule of Law will still be PM come Tuesday. The personal tragedy of a man of bad character is about to be our national tragedy. Will CBC, the Star or CTV please take note? 

But the other options have been so numbingly bad that what should have been a no brainer, that Trudeau must go, that it is a national imperative not just a partisan call that he go i s lost on many of us. This is lost as the Left Wing leaders simply parrot or amplify his destructive economic and fiscal agenda and the Tory Leader seems to be running against himself as John Robson suggested. This is added to by a compliant and fawning Press that has repeatedly acted as nothing more than an agent for the Liberal War Room. 

Evan Solomon incredibly suggested recently that this "crazy" campaign has seen no ballot issue emerge. Well, whose fault is that? Normally, THE ballot issue in any election is always "Should the Government (read Trudeau) be Re-elected?  Instead, one can be forgiven for thinking that the issue was whether Scheer should be re-elected. If the Voters of Quebec are sanguine about parking their votes with a clownish separatist cabal, will we the Voters at least save Canada from the larger tragedy of a renewed mandate for this renegade in power? Stay tuned...