PHOTOS: The late Jim Prentice, during his successful 2014 campaign to lead the Progressive Conservative Party, with supporters in Edmonton. Below: Anti-union “liberty conservative” Derek Fildebrandt, NDP Premier Rachel Notley, and Athabasca University Labour Studies Professor Bob Barnetson. It was probably his “math is hard” moment in a televised debate
Continue readingTag: Republican Party
Views from the Beltline: World’s richest country and it can’t even do health care. Sad!
Watching the Americans thrash about trying to put together a decent health care system prompts much head-shaking and eyeball-rolling. The Republicans have bitched and moaned about Obamacare for seven years, but in all that time haven’t been able to come up with a plan they can agree on. “It’s complicated,”
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canada’s Conservative Party, a once-great national organization, is being overwhelmed by its own extremists
PHOTOS: Federal Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi, a hard-working and talented former Edmonton Transit bus driver. Below: Alberta Infrastructure Minister Brian Mason, a hard-working and talented former Edmonton Transit bus driver. Mr. Sohi, a Liberal, and Mr. Mason, a New Democrat, are both used to cheap conservative shots about their former
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Wildrose reaction to proposed raise for front-line health workers illustrates the party’s rightward shift
PHOTOS: Rob Anderson, on the right, the Wildrose Party’s finance critic under Danielle Smith, at a rally supporting public sector workers in 2012. With him are AUPE President Guy Smith, left, and Alberta Liberal Leader David Swann, centre. Below: The Wildrose Party’s intemperate current finance critic, Derek Fildebrandt, Ms. Smith,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ted Byfield’s back, cyber-crusading for Jason Kenney’s bid to lead Alberta back to the Fifties!
PHOTOS: Ted Byfield at the microphone (Edson leader photo). Below: Alberta Education Minister David Eggen, the late Link Byfield, Mr. Byfield’s son, and a cover from the bad old days of Alberta Report magazine. Like the proverbial bad penny, Ted Byfield is back. It should come as no surprise that
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Deep irony in the deep state: Some thoughts about those post-Christmas American ‘spy’ expulsions
PHOTOS: A couple of Russian “intelligence operatives” pensively contemplate the news they’re about to be kicked out of the United States for acting like journalists. Actual GRU deep cover agents may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Russian President Vladimir Putin disguised as well-known journalist Clark Kent; U.S. President-elect Donald
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Trump saves the GOP (from himself)
Only a few months ago, the pundits were predicting a sorry future for the Republican Party. It was about to tear itself to pieces over the candidature of Donald Trump. And the prediction seemed to becoming true as one leading Republican after another distanced himself or herself from the candidate,
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Trump saves the GOP (from himself)
Only a few months ago, the pundits were predicting a sorry future for the Republican Party. It was about to tear itself to pieces over the candidature of Donald Trump. And the prediction seemed to becoming true as one leading Republican after another distanced himself or herself from the candidate,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The A, B, C’s of Dictatorship
Harvard prof and Foreign Policy columnist, Steven Walt, has a thoughtful essay, “10 Ways to Tell if Your President is a Dictator.“ My fears about Trump’s foreign policy have always been two-fold: that he might pursue a more sensible grand strategy but do it incompetently, thereby weakening America’s international position, or
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If Donald Trump won’t knuckle under, could he face an American ‘Colour Revolution’?
PHOTOS: One of many anti-Trump rallies in the United States in the past few days (from Facebook). Below: U.S. President Elect Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, U.S. Senator John McCain and Julius Caesar. It would be an irony if the troubles the United States has visited on much
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: The Travesty of the Electoral College
Of the myriad outrages that define last week’s United States presidential election — namely, the elevation of scandal over policy, of demagoguery over competence, of unabashed sexism and racism and conspiratorial paranoia over reasoned debate — perhaps the most egregious is the fact that the winner of the popular vote
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Don’t laugh or scream, but Jason Kenney is the Hillary Clinton of Alberta politics
PHOTOS: Hillary Clinton, grim faced, gives her concession speech on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. Below: Jason Kenney, who, it is predicted here, will in future be seen as the Hillary Clinton of Alberta; Sandra Jansen and Donna Kennedy-Glans, the two women who dropped out of the Progressive Conservative Party’s leadership
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If Alberta PCs can’t ensure basic rules around inclusivity and harassment, they’re not fit to govern: Rachel Notley
PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley at yesterday afternoon’s press conference in the Legislature media room. Below: U.S. President Elect Donald Trump and his unsuccessful Democratic Party challenger, Hillary Clinton (Photo by Gage Skidmore, Flickr). When a few journalists showed up in the Legislature’s media room yesterday afternoon for Rachel Notley’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Wildrose whip condemns racist imagery after the fact? That dog won’t hunt! Jason Nixon should have walked away
PHOTOS: A shot from the Twittersphere of Saturday’s anti-carbon-tax protest in Red Deer (grabbed from @IamBunbury). Below: A close-up from the photo of a person who appears to be Jason Nixon speaking to one of the protesters, and a photo of Mr. Nixon from a Wildrose event in 2015. Below
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Just say no to term limits! They’re fundamentally undemocratic and that’s why the right likes them
PHOTOS: Given the alternatives, most of the world would be delighted if this scene could be repeated, don’t you think? Probably most Americans would be too. Below: Four-time presidential winner Franklin D. Roosevelt and other presidents who contemplated third terms, but were thwarted for on reason or another, Ulysses S.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Athabasca University Students Union eyes legal action to block retroactive changes to nursing program
PHOTOS: Athabasca University’s new president, Neil Fassina, who started work this week (Athabasca University photo). Below: AU Faculty of Health Disciplines Dean Margie Edwards, former interim president Peter MacKinnon and, regarding a totally unrelated matter, Donald J. Trump Neil Fassina, former provost and academic vice-president of the Northern Alberta Institute
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Where’s Pat Paulsen, now that America needs him? And why didn’t Jason Kenney phone Brian Jean?
PHOTOS: Pat Paulsen and Bobby Kennedy. Below: Mr. Paulsen in 1970 … and in focus, putative PC leadership candidate Sandra Jansen and Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean. Where’s Pat Paulsen, now that America needs him? Or, to put this another way, seeing as Mr. Paulsen permanently departed this vale of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canadians can be thankful for small, and probably temporary, mercies in wake of U.S. presidential debate
PHOTOS: Republican candidate Donald Trump stalking Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton around the debate stage in St. Louis yesterday evening (CNN Photo). Below: 20th Century screen star Bela Lugosi, Edmonton political commentator Chanchal Bhattacharya and a Wildrose supporter in a Trump-style ball cap (National Observer photo). Happy Thanksgiving! I guess we
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Trump Never Had A Chance
Guest Post by Chris Henderson Seemingly every day, someone tells me that they’re worried Donald Trump will win the election. Aside from the natural anxiety that comes with a possibility potentially catastrophic (yet still remote), I really don’t believe Trump… Continue Reading →
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Republican rebellion against Trump unprecedented in modern campaign history, experts say
By Alexander Panett-Canadian Press- WASHINGTON — An internal rebellion has erupted against Donald Trump, knocking out support from longstanding pillars of the Republican party and threatening to turn his presidential campaign into ruins. Election historians Read more…
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