A Tale of Two Viruses

The Coronavirus and the Huawei 5G Debate both highlight a disturbing trend and threat in and to our society. One is physical. One is political but, depending on the outcome, could be quite a physical threat indeed and at least could threaten our sovereignty and therefore, in the last analysis, our liberty.

The reaction and choices of our elites in these situations has been both instructive and despicable. That is, their reactions appear to be based on a combination of politically correct instincts (anything a non-white, implicitly if not explicitly anti-Western and especially anti-American country does is far more tolerable no matter how egregious than if it be done by a Western ally and especially by the US) and an instinct for making money. Germany,  for instance has made no secret that its decision to adopt the Huawei system is due to its fear that China will retaliate against its exporters if it does not.

The despicable part is the cavalier way (especially in light of the SARS experience) we are dealing with the Coronavirus here. There is not even (and this includes pretty well all of the West) any ban on Chinese travel even to and from the Wuhan Province where the main part of the infection appears to have originated. Worse, as with too many pronouncements from this notoriously lying, violent and oppressive regime (look at the often Chinese-slavish coverage of Hong Kong by our own Press), their claims about just what is going on are broadly accepted as if our Press and governments were getting their bulletins from the CDC. This is dangerous folly and is playing with the lives of our people.

Huawei is a great example of the Deep State and its belief that it is a law unto itself and now a new twist - it too seems to have been caught up in the elaborate economic, technological and financial web spun by China these past 20 years. The same British Intelligence Community that said it would "seriously question" its continued cooperation with the 5 Eyes if the POTUS had exposed the British Intelligence Sources and methods used in the infamous Mueller and Steele Dossier Witch Hunt against him, his associates, his campaign and presidency, now dismiss claims from the US intelligence community that it would be reluctant to cooperate on intelligence with the UK if it chose Huawei for 5G. It would be interesting in the extreme to find out what personal positions British Intelligence chiefs have in Chinese and Chinese related investments.

The tentacles that China has in that country are deep and wide and reflected in all fissures of society...Oh, you thought I was talking about the Congo, Gabon, the Sudan or some other benighted African victim of the Chinese Belt and Road initiatives? No. I am talking about most Western nations, including the UK who have made this dangerous decision against American advice. As one analyst pointed out, we are all subjected to and daily bombarded with a sophisticated multi billion dollar public relations campaign mounted by the Chinese Diplomatic Corps and their allies in the media, academia and the corporate world that our Diplomatic Corps would not be allowed to mount in China even if they had the resources. The results are too often manifest in the almost casually Sinophile views so many of our leadership take on these only the most pressing of the serious challenges posed by China around the World. Even the Impeachment process reminds us of the somnolent state of military and diplomatic "thinking" as politicians, academics, bureaucrats and diplomats rage about a "war with Russia" while the Chinese are no doubt delighted to be ignored.

The List of American VIP's beholden to or besotted by the Chinese proves that even it is not immune to its charms: the Biden's, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Michael Bloomberg and Madeleine Albright to name but a few. Trump's Trade Wars with China are beginning to get at the Colossus of PR, Tariffs and T-Bills but the paucity of discussion of China for example on the Democratic Presidential campaign trail shows the overall success of China in making its interests the wallpaper of American society.

We have yet to make a decision on Huawei and have set up a special committee to monitor the Chinese Factor in parliament. But, in the end, the fact that the past ambassador for Canada to China was uncomfortably more interested in their interests than ours makes it all the more worrisome that the government that appointed him (led by a PM who praised their dictatorship) has the final say on the matter.

It is bad enough that literally trillions of dollars of investment by the Chinese not to mention Western debts to it have made us on the surface vulnerable to their priorities and world outlook (look at the way we have ignored the plight of the Chinese Muslims). Now, we blatantly turn a blind eye to a dangerous medical emergency. The cost to the British economy of not taking the Huawei system into the heart of its security technology will be maybe 6.6 billion pounds for a 2 trillion pound economy. The cost of doing so will be incalculable for Western freedom, privacy and safety. The cost of ignoring the Coronavirus and relying on China to sort it out will be our moral authority and God hopes not too many lives destroyed or ruined. In the meantime, for a threat to our liberty, only look as far as the moment their President excoriated one of our Press for their criticism and our own Foreign minister said nothing. These moments will become more common as our elites become more enmeshed in the Borglike entity of Agit Prop the Chinese have built unless we speak up and act. 

Ministry of Deplorables

Dear Mona:

I believe that it is time to balance your efforts to uplift the economic welfare of Canadians. I hear that the top 10% of income earners in this country (defined as earning more than $96000.00 a year, or half of an MP's salary) pay about 54% of Canada's revenues. What is worse, they are, well, a rather tawdry and kitschy bunch what with their McMansions, Lexus Toastermobiles, Home Theatre and Hilfiger's duds. Think of it -  in the 30's and 40's our rich were the Pride of our Nation and the envy of the World. They lived in glorious manors in Mount Royal and Rockcliffe, drove Jag Sportscars and Hudson convertibles, dressed like Gary Cooper and Ginger Rogers and owned theatres. And the top tax rate was 89% back then not 33!

We need a ministry which I believe only you should be tasked and entrusted  to run - the Ministry of Greater Upper Class Glory. This is a national imperative I believe. For in the Olympics of rich people, we are consistently taking the bronze medal. And here's the kicker - what better way to ensure Middle Class Prosperity than to make a good number of them rich. I have a theory that may only be mine. The more rich people, the richer we all will get. For, after we get the rich up to the rich level of say, the Saudis, the Irish  and the average gated community in the US, they're sure to have some money left over to give the Middle Class jobs and business, maybe, even a few truly poor people, too.

It's getting a little meaningless, you say? Giving a Ministry of You're Richer Than You Think to the Rich. With the Poor getting all the non-corporate welfare and the Middle Class their Prosperity Dynamo it's almost like if everyone's prosperous than no one's prosperous? Well, we have a Regional Development Ministry now not only for the Maritimes but for the West while Ontario is just as Have Not a province as Nova Scotia so this is Standard Operating Procedure and only (Canadianism coming) fair, eh?

There are 144 days left to use Disallowance to repeal Bill 21.

Things to Do

First Things to Do for the Chump that wins the Conservative Party Leadership: (should be announced first when they announce for the Leadership)

1. Call Maxime Bernier

2. Appoint Kevin O'Leary as their Economic, Business and Financial Advisor (and I mean the last as, if they do a good job, they are bound to make a killing on the market with his advice, ah, er, in trust, of course)

3. Invite the two Kiwis who managed the winning Australian and British conservative campaigns in 2019 and Dominic Cummings to Ottawa to deliver a weeklong seminar as to how they did it (hosted by Ricky Gervaise)

4.  Make sure that any donuts that appear at a Party event are Tim Horton's ("Let them eat Aux Donuts!")

5. Make sure the majority of the Directors of the Party are ordinary Members

6. Make sure that they are the last Leader of the Party not elected by One Member-One Vote 

7. Rename the Party the "New Conservative Party of Canada" (vanity suggestion)

8. Throw a special Party Party for Brian Mulroney

9. Find out the White House's phone number (because I'm sure the PM doesn't know what it is)

10. Make sure that they have the price of a 4 litre bag of milk reported to them daily from a different Canadian locale and the price of a gallon of milk in a US locale

11. Remind the caucus every day that good policy will never be about punishing people

12. Remind Canadians that we should feed to World

13. Ensure that the Party Platform is in place at least one year before the election campaign starts

Thank me later, Chump Number One!

PS:  14.  Have the Shadow Cabinet binge-watch the entire Letterkenny tv series

PPS:  I think we might be spending more on corporate welfare than we do on people welfare.

How To Tory

Sean Speer, a Tory wonk, recently wrote an interesting piece in the National Post about how the Conservative Party might go ahead there and win the next election. He pointed out the theory that the Party has a "high floor" (the largest base vote of any party) but a low "ceiling". In other words, its vote does not increase in real terms. The key he believes is the 6 million voters or one third of voters who did not vote. Appeal to them and you can easily win the 5 or 6 % more of the vote you need to get a majority. However, he was short on specific ideas on how or what to say or do to do this.

I have two ideas:

1. You must appeal to their economic well being. No that does not mean another government program. It means ideas that will make us more productive and competitive and therefore put more money into the pockets of all Canadians. The number one reason that we were taught in Poli Sci class that people do not vote is discontent with the system or as a wonk would say "inefficacy". The number one reason for that feeling is that people feel that their economic interests and concerns are being ignored by their leadership in favour of, take your pick, climate change, illegal immigrants, SNC Lavalin, Aux Donuts, etc., etc. Time to put forward ideas that appeal to that feeling. Call it "populism" if you want or Trump Light but, Trump and, to a lesser extent, Johnson and the Australians just proved it works and that leads perfectly to my second idea...

2. Double down on the base. Only the denizens of our "Beltway" would look at the Tories of 2019 and conclude that we lost because we were too conservative. I believe it is the opposite. Just as many GOP conservatives stayed at home losing the RINO Romney a close race to Obama in 2012, many natural Tories stayed home because they believed that Scheer was not only a poor Leader but that the Party did not stand for real conservatism any more. It stood for "Elect Me". If just about 1 million of the stay at home voters were natural Tories, we only need to bring back just over half of them to win a majority. And, if that's not enough, we should attract many Blue Liberals who stayed home or naturally "independent" voters along the way. This further, maybe, half million would give us a landslide. Better, the chances of a truly populist conservative, with bold ideas that are easily understandable in either official language, "activating" enough non-voting Liberals, Independents and New Democrats (oh we could get some of them, too, especially in the West) coming out to vote just to stop him or her are very slim indeed. Think Hillary. Did Trump "activate" any Democrat stay at homes to support her?

There is no reason to be a Trump "clone" as Johnson proved. But we do need a moderately competent (remember when they told us Ford could not win and BoJo was a clown?) and  modestly charismatic leader to put forward a few basic bread and butter but always definitively conservative ideas with a fresh coat of paint to win. (A perfect example -  Opportunity Zones for poor districts across Canada such as those in the US. Also a great example of the "Grand Bargain" where you achieve a conservative goal but help people that are not traditional conservative voters.)  This is surely not too much to ask. But if a similar approach is not taken, we could nominate the Second Coming of MacDonald and we would not win. Remember, approximately 20% of Trump voters never voted before and Johnson took seats the Tories had not won since WW1. We can do something like that here and with  (as the Aussies showed) far less exotic leadership. (BTW, just who is the PM there anyway?)

A Universe of Show Trials

We have the book 1984 to thank for forever memorializing for us one of the worst aspects of the Maoist and Soviet system - the Show Trial, but especially the climax of most show trials when the accused, often visibly still displaying the marks of the torture that elicited it, makes his "full confession" of his sins against the People and the State. Now, we have a society like that. Biden, Beto and Bloomberg look and sound eerily like those very same forced confessors. Bloomberg once made fun of Beto apologizing for being white and Biden apologizing for, well, pretty well everything he ever did (except of course for making money from his office). Mike did this in March when he explained he would not run because he would then have to make an "apology tour" and publicly repudiate everything he did or said publicly. Well, there he is running after all and telling us that his "stop and frisk" policy as Mayor of New York that saved thousands of young Black and Latino males and made the City one of the safest in the World...was wrong. Sad. Another victory for ignorance and the PC dictatorship. People like Bloomberg would do well to recall that, when the accused in a Show Trial finally made his confession, including 1984's Winston Smith, he was executed by the State anyways.

How corrupt is it?

How corrupt is the US political system? Bernie Sanders funnelled 80 million dollars for ad buys for his campaign in 2016 to a front company headquartered at a Virginia house owned by two of his staff, which thereby was paid a "commission" for placing the ads of some 12 million. What's really corrupt? It's perfectly legal and the FEC cannot even require the campaign to report or disclose who was behind it. His wife made 150000 dollars on a similar deal involving his ad buys when running for Congress. It's what's LEGAL that's really bad! This is a Loophole so big a Bernie Sanders For President Express Train can run through it.

Remember that Insider Trading law they passed in 2012 making it illegal for Congressmen to make money from their knowledge of congressional business? According to Schweizer (who details the above story and  many others in his latest book), it's been gutted. What he must mean by that is that the Sanders FEC manouveur, the Biden deals and the Warren activities involving getting federal contracts for her daughter's company and other matters are not technically land or stock deals and so they're still immune from prosecution. That upstate NY congressman Collins who was caught doing insider trading for his son should have simply had him set up a federal contracting business like Warren's daughter instead.

As for Biden, read just some of the stuff he and his family were doing in all of these areas of scams and on four continents and you are reminded of that wild guy who used to flog a book in the eighties and nineties that told you how to get federal loans, grants, subsidies and other benefits. The new edition should be titled: Papa Biden and the Amazing Flying Biden Family show you how to become a MILLIONAIRE for FREE (WARNING: You will need to get elected to Federal office first for the Amazing Biden Get Rich Quick Plan to work!).  Oh a reminder, Joe Biden alone (a man with no practical career business or experience whatsoever) has accrued $50 million in net worth since he left office... on January 20, 2017! He and family have definitely written the book on honest graft. Now I hope that, as they did with the Clintons, the voters throw the book at them (because one is sure that Schweizer is right that the Press and the FBI won't).

Bullshit over Ballots

Adam Schiff just said in the well of the US Senate:"We can't trust the Ballot Box." That should be the subtitle, epitaph and QED for the proposition that it is now the Un-Democratic Party. He should join Jo Swinson, Leader of the Non-Liberal and Un-Democrat Party who pledged not to implement the results of a Brexit Referendum whatever the outcome. When they say that they do not trust the Ballot Box, what they are really saying is that they can't trust you.

Impeach This!

What is a wonder is that in all of this talk of Impeachment, no one has mentioned Warren Hastings and what he can teach us about it. No, he is not a Shakespearean movie star nor a New Age Rock Star nor a boring, primping, pompous, eccentrically attired and pompadoured Law Professor or Ambassador (like some I can name). 

Warren Hastings was the British governor of Bengal India in the late 1700's who was impeached by the British House of Commons and tried by the House of Lords...for 7 years! In what is widely accepted as an unjust and partisan trial that bankrupted him, he was finally easily acquitted (after no less than 29 peers died before a verdict could be rendered). After a year of investigation by the House, Hastings was arrested for "crimes of misconduct and abuse of power" just weeks before the US Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia.

The Hastings Case must have weighed on the conscience of the drafting and deliberating Founding Fathers as they devised their own impeachment process for America. In short, in light of the horrible English experiences, they wanted impeachment to be a last resort, after oversight and the power of the purse, for Congress to deal with a lawless, corrupt, recalcitrant and tyrannical truly abusive President or other executive official or judge. They sought to avoid it being partisan and for it to be, above all, rare. They were not naive. They all lived in a basically undemocratic nation that saw incredibly corrupt practices even by the best of men. There would be abuses of power. Precisely because of this and paradoxically, they believed that it was unworkable and subject to abuse to use the "Nuclear Option" of impeachment for every "abuse of power".

Hamilton, himself, admitted that consideration had been given to truly insulate the process from pure partisan politics by having the Judiciary act as the trier. But, the interests of making the People and the States through Congress have a truly democratic role in the impeachment and removal of an executive outweighed these concerns. This was then mitigated by the ingenius device of first dividing the roles of impeachment, investigation and indictment and trial between the two chambers and finally requiring a 67 vote or 2/3 majority of the Senate to convict.

Further, the drafters sought to make it evident that a President or executive should have to have committed "High Crimes and Misdemeanours" to merit impeachment. As we know, that can be and has been interpreted as meaning nearly any sort of infringement, including orange hair. Obviously, the Founding Fathers thought that we could use our Common Sense of Hearing, Taste and, above all, Smell to determine if a President was an irremediable Scumbag.

Now, for the first time since the equally arguably partisan impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868, we see the Founding Fathers' Design threatened. Without any underlying crime, the impeachment plods ahead. The real question is: will this be the beginning of an era much like England and Britain in the 16-1700's where the Whig Supremacy led to the use of impeachment as a weapon against one's political opponents rather than as a dire check on "abuse of power"? Or will this benighted, superfluous, scandalous and frivolous abuse of impeachment lead to a new era of a Mutual Assured Destruction-style accord where both parties agree not to use it because it can bite both ways?

One resignedly hopes for the latter. Now the Twist Ending to this political scientific and legal disquisition - such an outcome will still leave an Executive unchecked, unsupervised and overfunded to continue to be the overpowerful and oversized monstrosity it is now. The true danger of this misimpeachment is not that it may lead to more such proceedings against the POTUS in future for similarly flimsy and nakedly partisan reasons. The real peril to the Republic is that Congress under either party's control has not, will not and does not want to try anything else to act as a true check and balance on the Presidency in the normal course. The abuse of impeachment, in other words, will not weaken an already leviathanite Executive (also definitively against the Founding Fathers' Design) but strengthen it all the more.

NP and Bloomberg and Fake News

The National Post continues to be the Democratic Party Public Relations Office when it comes to Donald Trump. They take like pablum the press service in particular of Bloomberg News. This is the same press agency that was recently given orders by its owner not to investigate any Democratic candidate for President including of course, he, Michael "I sign their paycheques" Bloomberg. (Of course, Bloomberg was authorized by General Big Slurp to investigate Donald Trump).

The latest: an article entitled "Key Takeaways from the Impeachment Trial - 'It's a coverup' says Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer". This is reprinted dutifully, faithfully and loyally by the NP without pointing out that the rules set out for trial were the same ones set out for Bill Clinton and voted for 100-0 including, yes, then Senator Chuck Schumer. They further do not point out that the process until now did not let Trump and his lawyers to participate, was half done in secret and strictly limited the questions Republicans could ask or the witnesses they could call, unlike in the Nixon and Clinton impeachments. It also does not point out that, when the POTUS refused to give them documents and witnesses, they waived applying to court to get them they were so anxious to get Trump impeached quickly. In other words, it's not even hinted that any coverup until now has arguably been mounted by the Democrats. This forensic approach is echoed by Bloomberg when neither the GOP nor Trump are given any chance to respond to this nakedly opinionated and partisan article.

It is almost certain and understood that the editorial boards and key columnists of both the NP and the Financial Post are moderately rabid Never Trumpers with a few noble exceptions. No illusions dwell here. But, when it comes to reporting the news, the NP could stop simply regurgitating the obvious partisan bias of agencies like Bloomberg on all things Trump as if it's the objective truth and not opinion. Hint: try the Wall Street Journal's news service.

It's bad enough that Canada's National "Conservative" newspaper is editorially down on the single most conservative (by word and deed) president in 30 years. It's worse when yet another paper of record sacrifices its journalistic ethics on the altar of its personal prejudices.

Abusive relationship

The National Review resident legalist and former USA, Andrew McCarthy, put it perfectly in terms of what he called the "Big Hole" in the Case for Impeachment: Politics as devised by the US Founders was supposed to be abusive. Politicians and even Judges abuse power all of the time. So they set up the checks and balances system to combat and prepare against that. Did that mean impeachment for every abuse of power? Of course not. There were other ways the Constitution provided and still does for checking an abusive executive - override of veto, oversight and the power of the purse, amongst others. The fact that the Congress has signally failed to hold the President accountable on these occasions  (Obama bullying the CBO into scoring Obamacare as not creating a deficit and the Fed Chairman into doing QE3 in 2012 are just two I can think of off the top of my head) does not mean you can now use impeachment as a sort of "break glass in emergency" and thus render not only that process meaningless and dangerous at the same time but also completely distort and finish the destruction of meaningful checks and balances at the same time. 

If someone had told Madison or Hamilton to replace "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" with "Abuses of Power" they would have laughed their Federalist Papers off. For, if "Abuse of Power" were more than a political device for partisan charlatanry and revenge, not only would most Presidents have been thrown out but so would most of our PM's, one of which just abused power like stink... but the People did not care.

Two Chinas

In announcing the China Trade Deal, The US Trade Rep, Lighthizer, pointed out the single most important fact about the US and China - they are two large economies and dynamic economies but with very different economic systems. In that sense, there are then two Chinas - the one that we realize is more economically powerful and influential than the one we grew up with and that some of the more misguided of us (including the Week for God's sake) envy for its command and control capitalism. The other is the one that is still fundamentally communist and state controlled not just socially and legally but economically. As such, it is still a great threat to us all and what we hold dear and must be straitened. Perhaps this Phase One is really Phase One in bringing China into the true law abiding and peaceful unbothersome family of nations If not, at least it's a halter on the Chinese Ox of tyranny with a good bottom line.

Split Decision

And in NYT, a decision to endorse Kloubachar and Warren. NYT has never endorsed two candidates for the same office before. It is an unfortunate case where you know what one will do and don't like it but not what the other will do (although Amy probably will do what Warren wants but at slower speed). I know I could not trust either as far as I could throw them. One because she lies all the time. One because like her hero, Hilary, and so many other Democrats, she claims to care about the "little People" but treats hers like dirt. The NYT could have done us all a favour and them if they had added a rider to their endorsement that the Impeachment Trial should be dismissed on Tuesday so that their champions can get a chance to campaign for the next three weeks in IA and NH!

The Swamp Rats Calling the Kettle Black

Think. These congressmen and their staff who impeached the POTUS give you three cards - one for their job in Congress, one for their PAC and one for their "consultancy". Every one of the major leadership of Congress have enjoyed some sweetheart deal or other that benefited them or their family that came from their public office. One congressman privately admitted to a conservative talk show host that, if the taxpayers knew the self-dealing that goes on in DC, they'd be coming with pitchforks. And they dare to talk about the POTUS "using his office for personal gain"?

Who's talking about rights?

It's always amusing watching the Remainer and their EU pals complain about whether human rights will be protected when the UK leaves the EU. Look, England had human rights while most of Europe was using their humans as footstools or worse. The UK has literally given millions of lives protecting, securing and establishing human rights for the rest of the World, including Europe for 100's of years now. What is more, it had industrial and worker rights and standards long before Europe even had industry and treated its workers as slaves. If anything, the UK today could teach large parts of Europe a thing or two about human rights, including the dennizens of the most undemocratic and inhuman technocratic structure of all - the EU. It is because it would not listen to the UK's pleas for transparency, democracy and true liberalism that there was Brexit in the first place.

On January 31, Bong away Big Ben!

United States of the Ukraine

The worst thing about the whole hyperpartisan ramshackle impeachment process is that it occurred to me that using it this way is just what they do in  countries like...the Ukraine.

Rooked

In addition to Have Not and No Fun Country, I am afraid that I have to also nickname mine the Rip-Off Country.

An American pays no HST. They pay less for airline tickets, housing, food, furniture, clothing, cellphones and cars. They earn 10-20000 US dollars more than we do. If you are an American living in Florida, Texas, Nevada, Washington or Tennessee, you do not pay any state income tax at all. Meanwhile, we pay more for less in all of these regards. As one wag put it after listening to the latest ravings of Comrade Andrew in Albany,"Maybe it's not just the weather that makes people leave New York!" Too bad that we cannot leave here for Florida or Wyoming as easily as a socialist-benighted New Yorker can. Would that we could make the people who run this rigged casino we call Canada leave instead.

Royal Sticker Shock?

The Royal Family is worth $88 billion according to Business Insider Magazine.

The "Sovereign Grant" for 2019 (that is, the money the British taxpayer pays directly for the Monarchy) was $104 million (admittedly small compared to the almost 900 Billion pound British national budget).

The Queen alone is, as at 2016, worth $530 million.

The Prince Harry and wife are worth $30 million.

Now, why does the British taxpayer pay anything to these people? Or, shall we say, they might dip in to their champagne budget and pay for some of their "grant" themselves. Or maybe they're an amazing bargain. But with 210000 British children going to "stuck" schools, one cannot help but think that 100 million might have gone a long way to getting them unstuck...or maybe it's hard to blame any of the so-called budget shortfalls or for anything or policy failings on the Sovereign Grant (roughly barely 0.1 % of the budget) and rather blame bad government and politicians.

The thing that I do not understand is: what do two people who have $15 million each need with any family support payments? (Hell, they could even provide themselves with their own protection on that allowance)

PS and to Repeat - the Royal Family is worth collectively the rough equivalent of 10% of Her Majesty's Government's annual budget! Sheesh...but I am still a Monarchist.

Imagine

Imagine if the Iranian backed militias had not "just" stormed and burned the US embassy in Baghdad but took dozens of its staff hostage, including Americans. Now imagine if the POTUS had tried to rescue them after months of their captivity and the attempt failed killing a number of American servicemen. How do you think the Democrats, especially their candidates for President, would have reacted? Compare and contrast with the way Ted Kennedy, George Bush and Ronald Reagan reacted and behaved in 1980 to precisely the same situation involving then President Jimmy Carter, bitter opponents of him all, and you can sadly see the vicious, poisonous and unpatriotic pass to which the Democrats and their friends in the Media have taken their partisanship. 

Apple Economy?

Interesting fact: one third of the last 1000 points gain by the Stock Market in the US was related to Apple!

Trumponomics v. Trudeaunomics

The TSX since December 31, 2015 is up 12 % (actually down 11% in 2018 and at 0% growth in 2019); and,

The DOW JONES since January 20, 2017 is up 55% (and this is reflected in the NASDAQ and the S&P and other major US indexes which in turn lead the World).

The proportional equivalent in growth for the two terms is (if the terms are roughly upped for the Americans), 12% for the TSX and an amazing 73% for the Dow.

QED Trump wins and we need to copy what he's doing ASAP!

More economic canaries in the mine of markets

There goes the Canary in the Mine of Markets again and it goes a long way to highlighting and explaining the widening US/Canada income gap. Put another way, your RRSP or TFSA is worth barely 10% more than it was when Trudeau took office. An American IRA is worth about 55% more (depending on your mix of investments) than it was when Trump took power. As someone finally mentioned recently, as with Reagan in 1984, Trump's key Re-Election question must be:"Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?". It should have been the question the Conservatives asked 24/7 in the benighted 2019 Election Campaign.

Team Player

Mike Lee is a GOP Senator from Utah who is co-chair of Trump's campaign there. Mike Lee is an erudite chap who along with his brother is routinely considered for the SCOTUS. Mike Lee called the briefing he got on the Solemaini strike "Un-American" (NR). Now why couldn't Mike Lee get over himself and his brilliance and farflung principles on the Deep State and  the War Powers Act and the like JUST THIS ONCE and either not use such over the top lingo or, better yet, go to the POTUS in private and explain his reservations that way? Being a team player does not mean simply saying yes all the time to the Boss but it also means knowing which team you're playing on from time to time and not helping the other side. Grow up and stop living in a vaccuum or planet where you are seemingly oblivious to the uses Trump's vicious and partisan opponents will make of your comments. Only in the sport of politics, would a deliberate fumble like this be rewarded!

(As for briefings, I can only imagine how many times Dem Congressmen were arrogantly or insensitively briefed by Obama's minions. They couldn't even get Obama on the phone in those days! But, did they ever complain about it in public?)

Red Line's got my back

I would like to ask the Senators and Congressmen, academics and pundits who feel the need to restrain the President in his, as Pelosi put it, "Decision to engage in hostile activity" with Iran, how would you like to live and work in the Green Zone? And, if you did work in this place that many of you called for setting up or actually caused to be set up, wouldn't you want your Government to have your back? Would you like to be a clay pigeon set up for every bad actor to shoot at, missile at, bomb, burn or storm at will? Or would you like your President to draw a red line that says:  "Harm a hair on an American's head and you will pay for it in kind or worse"? Before you go looking for ways to restrain this President, maybe some of you who advised him to get out of the stinking Nuclear Deal can answer those questions and then propose some other way of dealing with the rabid dog of international diplomacy then to slowly anesthetize it, which is what he is trying to do.

HINT: There is no way to decide to engage someone in hostilities who has been engaged in hostilities with you already and for 40 years.

Reverse Canary in the Mine

Watch the Stock Markets to determine the real health of the POTUS' admin and his reelection hopes. Despite Impeachment 24/7 for 3 months, they reached record highs. Despite the roiling of Solemaini's broiling, the Dow went up 65 points on Monday. Someone knows something everyone who is "smart" doesn't.

No Fun Country

Dean Acheson, a son of a Canadian Son whose "Command" once helped create the entire US Diplomatic and Security apparatus as we know it, once personified and characterized his father's "Home and Native Land" as an avenging, chastising, puritanical pastor. If he had seen our broadcast policies, he would have felt that he was generous in his assessment. 

We live in a Nation that is supposed to be "True North Strong and Free" but does not allow language on the radio that might be "offensive" to anyone. A radio station's license was once pulled when it played "Money for Nothing" on its program. Now, our Supreme Court weighs in on whether we can watch American Super Bowl commercials. Here's the Can Con: you can't!

 We live in a country where more and more people feel free to tell you just what you must see, listen to or even say or possibly think. And if you think something unpopular, well, you better learn to be strong when the tide of PC abuse comes in and almost destroys your life. As for the "Canadian Content" reason people use to justify lording it over your viewing and listening habits, remember: it took the Stratford Festival at least 50 years to regularly put more than one Canadian play on its stage while they were taking our tax dollars in the name of Can Con all of that time.

I will make a bet. I bet that Canada and more importantly Canadians will be more strong and sovereign without some judge, bureaucrat or politician telling them what they can say, do or enjoy on their own time and money.

Doubling down on Dumb or Conservative Piltdown Man

The Charlie Brown's football analogy strikes again, now for the conservative voter (yes, the "Small C" not the "Big C") who votes for a leader of a "Conservative or PC" party only to get a Red Tory in Opposition and the Liberals in Government. The most recent example: when many of us were convinced to go with "socially conservative" Andrew Scheer and reject the obviously really severely conservative Maxime Bernier. Then we got a milk carton-toting, budget-not-balancing, I'm not sure how great Canada is-ing Dweeb who could not even convince his own Grandma that he was better than one of the worst PM's ever. 

Another example: we voted for Leader of the PC party in Ontario a man we thought would be an even smarter version of his Gravy Train-hating brother. When he won a massive majority after the Red Tory Albany Club scuzzees told us he would be a disaster and never win, we finally celebrated thinking we had finally got a conservative avatar and soulmate in power. But we forgot that our Hero was already saddled with a classic Wet Suicide Note in the form of the Platform agreed before he became Leader which simply tried to out-Liberal the Liberals. He has governed accordingly.

And who told us to do all of these things that have resulted in defeat or not conservative government? Why, the Lucy in this sad story, the Red Tories. Every time we follow their advice, we lose elections, lose all moral authority in power and/or lose power. The history of Red Tory locustry goes back as far as Stanfield in the 70's whom they told to go for wage and price controls for God's Sake and lost badly to Trudeau (who did it any way like any good socialist would). Clark promised to cut taxes and do a range of other conservative things to win a minority government only to be advised to raise taxes and lose power the next year.

Mulroney was finally finding his feet as a Thatcherites tax cutter, free trader and privatizer only to leave a gutted party when he decided to bring in the GST, hate on the West and mollycoddle Quebec nationalism.. The Common Sense Revolution was going great built on true conservative values that won two large majorities and rescued a PCO that had lost its way due to its Red Tory masters until its father abandoned it and its values and the Martian McGuinty Liberals were elected (this time ironically after promising for once to be as conservative as the Conservatives!). Ralph Klein led a similar conservative triumph in Alberta only to abandon it in a spending spree that did not stop until the PC's were kicked out after 44 years of power by the NDP as electors concluded that there was little difference between the two.

On the federal level, in the 90's the Red Tory was there to tell us not to merge with the Reform or the Canadian Alliance. "Let Charest and Clark lead us out of this mess" they urged. Too many of us listened, the conservative vote was split and we got 10 years of Liberal government as a result.

Then, the Prize. We elected Stephen Harper as Leader of the new merged "Conservative" not PC Party, chair of the NCC, Reform Party Right Hand Man and Friedmanite Economist and in just 3 years he was PM. 3 election victories and one majority later we saw Harper abandon all of his conservative principles and make as his greatest feats an enormous deficit, tax tweaks and an auto bailout. By the time, Canadians did what Albertans did - vote for the real Liberal instead of settling for the pretend one, the Red Tory takeover was almost complete to be completed when they got their Clark clone as leader in 2017.

All of these sad tales of political woe were chiefly architected by the Red Tory. Sometimes the Leader or prominent ministers or MP's are to blame. Almost never is it the membership of the Party that is usually more conservative than their leadership. But more often than not, the culprit is unelected, maybe appointed to some admin post and unknown to any of us poor soiled wretches in the front lines. Every time we listen to them, they're wrong. They were horribly wrong about Scheer, who they wanted badly to provide a respectable vessel for their real goal - to deny a true conservative thinker from taking power. Now they beg us to listen to them again and double down on their inane, pointless, amoral slow death march to socialism by voting for a Charest or a MacKay to replace him. If we fall for Lucy's Football once again, we will have truly devolved from Harper Conservative back to Clark Conservative in less than  a generation after all the painful work we did trying to evolve from Clark PC to Harper Conservative in the painful generation before.

Fwd: Liberal-Conservative

We have a Liberal Party that is not liberal and a Conservative Party that is not conservative. We have parties whose only constant principle is power.

Martin Brian the Second

And another thing...Mulroney was asked by Braid whether USMCA was better than NAFTA. Well, beside congratulating the Liberal descendants of the Free Trade haters for their "great job" on that, the former PM (who architected the FTA with the US, and was called a traitor who was going to erase the US border by Bob Rae and John Turner for his pains) he could have said that, once again, "Trump was right". For surely there would have been no USMCA, with its higher auto worker and environmental standards for Mexico, without Trump.

But, in any case, it might also have done him good to admit that, lately, the FTA is not going well for us because we are not competitive with the Americans. This is especially true in the energy sector. While we discourage, forbid or downright assault our energy industry, they have let it bloom so that they are now the number one oil producer in the world on their way to being the number one exporter. They are poised to leave Paris while we continue to be committed to that arch jobkiller. As the US under Trump is less interested in being "pristine" than us and more interested in making money, they are leaving us in the dust economically.

Worse, all those worker adjustment programs that MBM promised with the coming of FTA and NAFTA never really materialized. Mulroney's dream of Free Trade only works if we can compete. So the best worker adjustment program we can bring in to cope is to do as much as possible the same way as the US. That is low taxes, open markets and lower regulation.  Maybe we can start on that before we make sure every BBQ in Canada is registered for Climate Change. To judge by USMCA alone, we should all be saying "thank you" not to those feckless, protectionist hypocrites, Freeland and Trudeau, for making Mulroney's vision breath again but Trump.

Martin Brian

Don Braid interviewed Mulroney recently and reminded me why I loved and why I hated him at the same time. First, he pointed out how bad it is that we do not pay our way in Defence (1.2% of GNP) and Foreign Aid (.2%) and even said that on our delinquent NATO dues "Trump is right". His witty anecdote from Manley:"When the check comes at the dinner table, we go to the bathroom!" His government was the last to reach the NATO target and was on its way to .7% on aid.

Then he talked about his "grand vision" for the Environment, obviously revelling in being reminded that May called him the "greenest PM". I do recall the Acid Rain Treaty and his unfortunately being the first PM to get us mired in the global warming cult. But it disturbed me that he believes that a party can no longer hope to win without a micromanaging Climate Change policy. Somehow the middle class is more interested in ensuring a "pristine" environment and having to pay more taxes (on top of taxes like the GST that Brian brought in) than

in ensuring they and their children have jobs and better pay. This from a man who hasn't been "middle class" in 50 years and who got his big break from a strip mining company.

Incredibly, while slagging the Conservative Party for not doing the bidding of the Climate Change religion, neither he nor Braid seemed interested in asking where the grand chumps of Confederation, Alberta, who has these 50 years paid the bills for all of us, including the great Central Canadian holier than thou middle classes, fit into this "grand vision". Surely, if Alberta falls we all do. What economic success that we have enjoyed in the last 20 years has been delivered by Alberta. If we adopt a continuing assault on our energy industry (except of course, in MBM's favourite "distinct society" of the double standard, Quebec) we will all lose.

This needs to be confronted honestly. A Grand Bargain for upping our defence spending to 2% in return for increasing aid to .7 would be a good answer to the legitimate issue Mulroney first addressed. Similarly, we need not a grand vision but a grand bargain for the Environment. This would involve truly revenue neutral consumption taxation of pollution including carbon emissions but also the cleanup of real pollution like our dirty rivers and shitty harbours and our hellhole reservations. But we must combine that with a new legislative regime that will give energy projects the same certainty that projects in other sectors expect and get. If we don't, foreign investment here (which is heavily attached to those projects) will dry up.

The irony is that, if we do not make money, especially in the oil patch, it will be harder for us to be "pristine" and, if we do not watch out, we will lose Alberta. After the studied ignorance and neglect of Mulroney's government toward Western concerns, we got the Reform Party. Doubling down on this studied refusal to acknowledge those concerns and treat them will not only possibly alienate and eventually lose those provinces affected this time, but leave us all the poorer.

Save TB 12

It was a little annoying reading about Bob Kraft's "hopes and prayers" that Tom Brady stay with the New England Patriots or at least go ahead there and retire a Patriot now. I'm sure TB and his fans really appreciated his latter advice. Not! But maybe it's time, after beggaring this man, who practically built the franchise as we know it, with lowball contracts all these years, to show him the money. Or, better yet, show him the Profit-sharing. 

How about giving him a share in the Team? And, while you're at it, how about doing the same for the other man who founded your feast - Bill Belichick? Harry Sinden offered that to Bobby Orr. Bob, you said that Brady was like family to you, like a son, like blood. I'm betting that your son will inherit the team when you shoot off your last celebratory musket. I'm sure he would not gripe if you offered, say, a 5% ownership stake to each of Brady and Belichick (who at least qualifies as a little brother, right?). Sinden offered 18.5% to Orr.

Sinden (whose incredible offer was stymied by the evil Alan Eagleson simply not telling Orr what it was) understood the importance of family and franchise players. Time for Kraft to stop yapping and make a tangible effort to show that he does, too. (Oh, and  a salary for Tom that's at least as high as, say, that of Nick Foles, a tight end with maybe a third of the talent of a Gronk, a hammerback like Blount and a deep outside threat like Randy Moss would also be great.) Come on, Bob!

Oh, Canada!

Anyone want to ask how it is that the US African-American unemployment rate is exactly the same as the general unemployment rate in Canada - 5.9%? Or, is it racist to point that out? If that's true, then it also means our income level is worse. In fact, the African American pci is about 22% less than the average US pci of $65000.00 which works out to... about $51000.00 or almost $8000.00 more than the average Canadian pci! Does anyone care?