Assorted content to end your week. – John Ivison makes the case for more discussion of government spending rather than corruption and scandal. But it’s PressProgress leading the way in actually reporting on that front – featuring revelations that multiple resource-related ministers’ office have received massive spending boosts, while program
Continue readingTag: tim harper
Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Tim Harper discusses Stephen Harper’s current list of distractions – with Rob Ford and his Senate appointees naturally topping the list. But sadly, while John Ivison may be right in noting that actual citizens are having trouble getting the Cons to bother administering
Continue readingA BCer in Toronto: Hebert, Walkom, and (not that) Harper talk #cdnpoli at Word on the Street
Up next after the city hall politics panel in the Toronto Star tent at the Word on the Street festival on Sunday was the federal politics panel. On hand were Toronto Star federal politics columnists Chantal Hebert, Tim Harper and Tom Walkom. The topic? “Stephen Harper vs. Justin Trudeau and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On middle ground
Tim Harper’s column today is certainly worth a read in exposing the implausibility of the Cons’ “economic stability” theme. But I’ll point out that he completely buys the Cons’ equally flawed spin as to who stands to benefit from the major planks they’ve hinted at in their 2015 platform: The
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Richard Seymour rightly calls out right-wing lobby groups in the UK for distorting the facts in order to attack social programs: The report calls for benefits to fall in real terms, and refers to “the regrettable 5.2% blanket benefit increase put through in
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Anti-Harper
I’d like to make it clear at the start of this post that I have by no means been converted to the belief that Justin Trudeau would be an appropriate choice to lead the country, for reasons that I will conclude the post with. However, I simply want to make
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jenny Carson asks what governments are doing to lift poor workers out of poverty. (Spoiler alert: the Cons’ answer is “why would we want to do that?”). – Meanwhile, Kemal Dervis and Uri Dadush discuss the desperate need to rein in inequality
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Not surprisingly, this week’s revelations about Pamela Wallin have set off plenty more discussion about what’s wrong with the Senate and its current beneficiaries. Andrew Coyne recognizes that the problem lies in the design of an institution based on patronage and unaccountability
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Pondering Pam Et Al.
It was a comment yesterday that The Mound of Sound (a.k.a. The Disaffected Lib) made in response to a cartoon I posted depicting the much beleaguered Senator Wallin that made me think. He reminded me of an earlier time when there was honour associated with public service, and expressed the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Joseph Stiglitz comments on the wider lessons we should take from Detroit’s bankruptcy: Detroit’s travails arise in part from a distinctive aspect of America’s divided economy and society. As the sociologists Sean F. Reardon and Kendra Bischoff have pointed out, our country is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Eric Dolan discusses Paul Piff’s research showing that wealth tends to lead to antisocial behaviour – and that even the beneficiaries of a rigged Monopoly game are quick to take on an air of entitlement: Across multiple studies, researchers at the University of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Mike Konczal discusses the distribution of U.S. tax breaks and incentives, and finds that measures normally presented as offering breaks for everybody in fact serve mostly as giveaways to the wealthy: (T)he government is very responsive to the interests of the top 20
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Stephen Harper – Then and Now
“I have looked at the numbers. Her travel costs are comparable to any parliamentarian travelling from that particular area of the country over that period of time”– Stephen Harper, February 13, 2013, as part of his staunch defence of Senator Pam Wallin’s extravagent expenses, now under investigation. Wallin resigns from
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Andrew Coyne notes that the Robocon decision finding electoral fraud using the Cons’ voter database fell short of naming names – but recognizes that there’s still a glaring need for further investigation, a sentiment echoed by the Globe and Mail. Tim Harper explains
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Yes, there’s plenty more on the Cons’ Senate scandal, with Tim Harper headlining the latest discussion: Mike Duffy is radioactive. The one-time Conservative cheerleader is now the poster boy for the filth which envelops the party brand. The man holed up on Friendly
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Stephen Harper takes partisan politics abroad
Harper’s government reacts with overwrought rage when other Canadian politicians express opinions outside Canada. So which way is it? By: Tim Harper | Toronto Star, Published on Fri Apr 19 2013: OTTAWA — Stephen Harper was representing Canada at the funeral of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in London this week. Was
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – While there’s room to question whether we should accept spending as self-definition in the first place, Zoe Williams is right to make the point that arbitrary restrictions on benefits serve to put yet more barriers to full social participation in front of the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Tim Harper reminds us why Brad Wall is thoroughly off base in claiming that it’s the duty of every Canadian politician to demonstrate constant fealty to his resource-sector puppet-masters: The Conservatives, of course, would like the entire country to come together behind their
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Absolutely!
For me, one of the biggest offenses against logical thinking is absolutism, which essentially says there is only one right answer, that everything is black or white, with no gradations of gray. An example would be Vic Toews infamous assertion, when controversy erupted over his deeply flawed Internet surveillance bill,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Cory Doctorow duly blasts the Harper Cons for meekly complying with an onerous copyright treaty which isn’t even in force. Which raises the question: if the Cons were really interested in demonstrating some independence as a response to the U.S. declining to rubber-stamp
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