It is sad to watch democracy die. The more we see. The more we hear. The more we understand is happening south of the Canada-U.S. border, the more our concern grows. And why are we only watching? Mr. Trump’s friend Vladimir Putin is actively supporting this demolition of what once
Continue readingTag: donald trump
Babel-on-the-Bay: So, who wants an election?
Americans do it every four years. Canadians sometimes do it more often. We are talking about federal elections here. Americans have never seen one like this one: the vote seems all locked down two months before the actual election. Given that intention and the determination of the voters, Donald Trump
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What would make Mr. Trump smile?
Have you noticed how dour the U.S. president is looking in all his recent pictures? The guy has forgotten how to smile. The only time we saw him smirk, even a little, was during that disgusting scene on the south lawn of the White House when his hand-picked audience where
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Oh America!
Watching events on the south side of the White House the other night was traumatic. My American mother had taught all six of her children that the Canada-U.S. border was largely irrelevant. We have all crossed that border so many times throughout out our lifetimes. It was for our 50th
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Crawford Kilian takes a look at Kurt Andersen’s new book on the collaboration between massively wealthy people and those willing to be subjugated to their interests who have re-engineered society for their benefit, to the detriment of everybody else. – Oren Cass
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Donald Trump and the Unravelling of America
Donald Trump is starting to panic. He can see the writing on the wall, and he now realizes that he is heading for defeat in November. So he is now trying to buy votes anyway he can, and promising that only he can make America great again. But it's a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Good union jobs! Green jobs! UCP supporters need not panic, they’re not for anyone around here!
Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party, friends of the union man and woman, not to mention the environment! Who would have seen that coming? Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: Chris Schwarz, Government of Alberta). Yet there was Energy Minister Sonya Savage, her words in black and white in the text
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Donald McNeil discusses how inconsistency in state-level policies and a lack of federal leadership have combined to result in the coronavirus epidemic manifesting in radically different ways across the U.S. And Karen Wang points out the ticking clock facing Canadian students, parents and
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The man who cannot tell the truth.
It is a puzzling experience in life to have to deal with the reality of a man who is incapable of telling the truth. Listening to this man is like hearing a child fabricate a tale of the penguin who ate the cookies. You listen with a smile, because the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Little sister is watching: Was Jason Kenney’s Southern Alberta RV tour fake news?
“The premier of Alberta rolled into Fort Macleod last week with a message of hope,” the Fort Macleod Gazette reported enthusiastically in its July 8 edition. What’s more, the Gazette went breathlessly on, “Premier Jason Kenney held court at Stronghold Brewery on June 30 during his tour of southern Alberta
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Scott Gilmore wonders whether we’ll use the lessons of COVID-19 to set up our own “tsunami stones” to prevent future crises. But Tom McCarthy notes that the U.S. – thanks largely to an administration that has gone out of its way to avoid
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ford follows mentor Trump.
From the low of being booed at the Raptors’ celebration in Toronto last year, Ontario premier Doug Ford feels it is time to hear some applause. After all the exposure he has gotten from the pandemic, he is ready to go on the road again. Like Donald Trump in the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What’s it tell us that a couple of bad-boy Lethbridge cops almost got away with illegal surveillance of an NDP minister?
It’s tempting to write off yesterday’s big story about that pair of none-too-bright county mounties from the Lethbridge Police Service caught stalking an NDP cabinet minister as just a dumb cop comedy without much significance. But Sgt. Jason Carrier and Const. Keon Woronuk were no Gunther Toody and Francis Muldoon,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Patrick Brethour, Caroline Alphonso and Dave McGinn write about the no-win situation facing parents being pushed back to work by governments who haven’t bothered to match that demand with any effort to ensure the availability of child care. And Denise Ryan discusses
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – T.M. Scanlon analyzes the dangerous effects of wealth inequality. And Philip Alston discusses how COVID-19 has only exposed an existing pandemic of poverty and inequality which was previously masked by grossly insufficient poverty lines: The consequences of this highly unrealistic picture of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Trump’s ‘Far-Left’ Fascism.
Donald Trump is obviously testing ideas for the November election. One of his claims in the recent Mount Rushmore speech was to complain about the “new far-left fascism” that is intent on “wiping out” American history. While it is obvious that he has never studied political science, to erroneously mix
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Robert Reich discusses how Donald Trump’s insistence on pushing reopening without a plan to alleviate an ongoing pandemic has led to disaster both for the U.S.’ economy and its public health. And the Economist highlights the need to make basic health precautions into
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Josh Eidelson writes about the fleecing of American labour in general over the past five decades, while E. Tammy Kim discusses the systematic exploitation of workers in the U.S.’ nursing homes in particular. And Robyn Urback writes that the Ford government is only
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Fourth of July Fever: Pay attention when your neighbour has a breakdown; it may be contagious
Happy Fourth of July. It’s Independence Day at the crazy neighbour’s place next door and the crowds are partying without masks. How the world sees Donald Trump, as a fire gremlin (Image: Der Spiegel). We can’t very well send fire trucks to help put the fires out because the borders
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jason Markusoff discusses Jason Kenney’s race to the bottom as he uses a pandemic as an excuse to sacrifice yet more public money and workers’ rights to corporate freeloaders. – Richard Cannings points out how inequality is a drag on our economy
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