The ignorant and the gullible are on the march in America. They are coming to his rallies and buying his snake oil. Donald Trump has his eye on the prize: the November election. That is quite a prize for a serial killer who has already helped the pandemic take the
Continue readingTag: donald trump
Susan on the Soapbox: When Jason Kenney Told Off China and It Backfired
Covid-19 upended everything. No one knows whether the world will snap back to “normal” like an elastic band or be gone forever. Economists, futurists, and historians are all over the map when it comes to what to expect in the future. Some, like conservative historian Niall Ferguson, suggest we
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Government puts ‘Fair Deal’ report on the shelf after panel hands in its homework late
Alberta’s so-called Fair Deal Panel, which might have seemed like a good idea when Premier Jason Kenney announced it last fall, presents something of a political problem for a government that has more often than not let Ottawa do the heavy lifting throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Premier Kenney pitched the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: And the show goes on.
Just when you have lost all interest in America’s president Trump, he finds something more ugly, more tawdry with which to entertain you. There seem to be none of the deadly sins of pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger or sloth that do not entice and enthrall him. Is this
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Donald Trump and the Video That’s Driving Him Crazy
Last Sunday night Donald Trump shocked most decent Americans by taking part in a Fox News town hall at the Lincoln Memorial.And making an absolute fool of himself over and over again."They always said Lincoln — nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse." But now it seems
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your Saturday reading. – Ed Yong writes about the many complexities surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, including how much we have left to figure out before being able to make any concrete plans. – Leonardo Trasande and Akhgar Ghassabian discuss how chemicals in our homes may be
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Randy Rainbow and the Mad Doctor Trump
Donald Trump isn't playing the mad doctor any longer, and suggesting that you can cure COVID-19 by injecting disinfectant into your veins, or shoving a powerful light up your rear end.Not after he was informed that poison control calls have been soaring. Not after learning that his polls are tanking. And not after
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It’s all about politics.
There was a suggestion in the news the other day that few of us are interested in politics at this time. The assumption was that the coronavirus has chased politics out of the driver’s seat of the daily news. In my humble opinion, that is just so much twaddle. The
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Rochelle Baker interviews David Suzuki about the lessons from the coronavirus pandemic which we should apply equally to the threat of a climate breakdown. And Mike Layton writes that we need a Green New Deal as our recovery program once the pause on
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Making a stand, in Dixie.
It is only appropriate. If any music is right for the coronavirus in the United States, it is Dixie. In the American Civil War, Dixie was the song of defiance and it took many from the American South to a needless and untimely death. This came to mind the other
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Has Mad Doctor Trump Made A Fatal Mistake?
He's trapped in the White House. He can't play golf. The pandemic has blown his economic boom out of the window.And it's all driving Donald Trump crazy… or crazier.So much so that he's playing doctor again.Read more »
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Paul Taylor comments on the rifts in our social fabric which are being highlighted by COVID-19. And Graham Riches argues that the food banks which are being pushed to the limit by the pandemic would never have been necessary if our economy wasn’t
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What Jinping, Putin, Trump have in common.
Why are we surprised if American president Trump wants to be named president for life? The man hardly wants less than his counterparts, Xi Jinping, president for life of China, Vladimir Putin, president for life of Russia. They are men of enormous egos. They live in make-believe worlds, where all
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “Are we there yet?”
That man-child in the American White House reminds me of taking the kids on a road trip. How soon they would tire of their prison in the back seat of the family sedan. And, no matter how many games you had lined up for them, you eventually hear what every
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The populism of the coronavirus.
We live in an age of populist political solutions but we never expected to have to deal with a populist pandemic. The problem is that a populism pandemic is blind. It strikes the rich and powerful one per cent as easily as the person in poverty. It can kill the
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Why The Cons Should Now Be Known As The Trump Party
As I'm sure you all know, I have long believed that Andrew Scheer and his Cons are more American than Canadian.And now we have yet another example of how low they have fallen.Another example of the strange power the increasingly deranged Donald Trump holds over them.Read more »
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The impatience of Donald Trump.
While Canadians have mostly been enjoying the unusual unanimity of their federal and provincial leaders in this time of the pandemic, the situation in the U.S. is reversed. In a frightening replay of the Spanish flu of 100 years ago, the states and their federal government are fighting their own
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A man and his ideas.
Bernie Sanders has taken himself out of the race for the democratic nomination for president. He left his legacy behind. The Vermont senator is probably tired but he can be very proud of what he achieved. He left most of the pundits, arguing about the policies on which presumptive candidate
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Tobias Jones discusses how COVID-19 has emphasized the importance of social interaction to human well-being: It seems callous to suggest that this tenebrous pandemic is letting the light in, and daft to offer immediate consolations amid so much grief. But there is a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The lost year.
It was when sitting through the excruciating ignorance of a Donald Trump briefing with his Gong Show covid-19 crew that it occurred to me. With this kind of leadership in the U.S., the country will be lucky to be out of the woods before Christmas, 2020. North Americans still have
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