by matttbastard Michael Tomasky: The Boston Globe ran a chart last Sunday that I’d buy billboard space to reproduce in every decent-size city in America, if I were running the Democratic National Committee. The premise of it was very simple: It … Continue reading →
Continue readingTag: US politics
Blast Furnace Canada Blog: The other shoe drops in the States
Finally, at least one of the bond rating agencies in the United States has owned up to its hypocrisies — and slapped down the country’s long standing credit rating, from AAA to AA+. The press release indicates that the agency, Standa…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The Debt Deal and Defense Spending
Defense spending factors into the recent deal to avert the entirely political debt “crisis” in a couple of ways. Firstly, amazingly, the deal actually increases defense spending in a certain sense. Given the wind down in Iraq and proposed end of Afghan…
Continue readingbastard.logic: Another Stop Along the Road to Damascus
by matttbastard The pullquote from one of David Frum’s latest eviscerations of contemporary USian conservative folly, a meditative riff on Susan Sontag’s infamous “Were our enemies right?” speech, was making the rounds yesterday (eventually getting linked by the subject of Frum’s … Continue reading →
Continue readingRed Tory v.3.0.3: Market Craps on Debt Ceiling Deal
Funny that shortly after the U.S. Congress passed the largest – and arguably most catastrophically stupid – deficit reduction package in history, the market promptly reacted by taking a nosedive. Apparently, the ugly, job-killing “compromise” hastily cobbled together by U.S. … Continue reading →
Continue readingwmtc: "the marriage vow": more racist myths about american slavery
Earlier this year, I blogged about a dangerous, racist myth about US history: that the southern states seceded from the union not because of slavery but because of “state’s rights”. This is a lie. Historical record leaves no doubt: there was only one r…
Continue readingwmtc: dear u.s.: tax corporations, tax the rich, end the useless wars. there, problem solved.
Letter to the Globe and Mail, July 30:It’s remarkable how in the current debate about the U.S. debt ceiling, the extravagance of American military spending is seldom even mentioned. In its fiscal 2010 budget, the United States gave $685-billion to the …
Continue readingRedBedHead: Ross Perot, the Tea Party: Why Are Third Party Politics In the US So Crazy?
As radical as they think that they are, the Tea Party follows a pattern of attempts to create a third party in the US political duopoly – which, let’s face it, is a one party state with two factions. The constant pressure to put aside “partisan” politi…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: A not so clever move in a broken political game
Previously: A clever move in a broken political game
Unlike a couple weeks ago, the Aug 2nd deadline really, really, is approaching fast. There was a time when playing empty political games to try and win a bit of public opinion was, perhaps, even log…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: All the "easy" oil and gas may be gone, but still …
While most regions of Canada have imposed moratoriums on “fracking,” using jackhammers and / or high pressure water injections to get out natural gas, one province — British Columbia — is going, pardon the expression, full steam ahead and allowing ou…
Continue readingRed Tory v.3.0.3: The Platinum Debt Solution
While in all probability America’s so-called “debt ceiling” will be raised next week – just as it routinely has been for the last 74 times since 1962 – the utterly dysfunctional political dynamic in Washington in Washington has turned what … Continue reading →
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Where to build the so-called "Road to Nowhere"? There’s really no where else to put it
Now this is interesting … the “Canadian Transit Company,” which sounds like a coalition of the urban public transit providers in Canada but is in fact the Canadian face of the American-owned Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario with Detroit,…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Another Catholic bishop bites the dust
Yet another RC bishop has tendered his resignation over the never-ending sex abuse scandal. This time it’s Cardinal Justin Rigali, the archbishop of Philadelphia.One can only hope Joe Ratzinger doesn’t take the coward’s way out like his pre…
Continue readingCanadian Soapbox: The Tea Party movement – Defending the undertaxed from the overtaxed
Although the debt ceiling crisis playing out in Washington is an American concern, it is an issue with huge ramifications here in Canada and across the world.
American historian Bernard Berenson is credited with this famous quote:
“Governments …
Blast Furnace Canada Blog: Brooks is not the victim here
Why was Rebekah Brooks made to fall on her own sword? What happened to the buck stops here (meaning it’s the ownership of the paper, not the editors, who take responsibility)? Isn’t the Murdoch family who should give up Ne…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: A clever move in a broken political game
The “negotiations” surrounding raising the debt limit in the United States is a particularly poignant example of the oh-too-funny-if-not-so-serious circus of partisan, brinkmanship showboating that dominants so much of American politics. It is hard to …
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: How low will Rupert go?
Former British PM Gordon Brown has gone on the offensive against Rupert Murdoch. He stated today that while both PM as well as Tony Blair’s Chancellor, his banking records and e-mails were hacked by the more reputable of Rupert’s publ…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Canada boycotts arms meeting
I rarely agree with the Harper Government on anything. But on this one, I do. We have every right, indeed the duty, to boycott a disarmament conference if the country chairing the meeting is North Korea. …
Continue readingRed Tory v.3.0.3: Beyond Reasonable Doubt
Bill Maher compares the failure of jurors to convict Casey Anthony in the killing of her child with the failure of Republican voters to connect the dots between the U.S. budgetary deficit and the fact that the wealthiest people in … Continue reading →
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Good riddance to one Murdoch newspaper, but here comes another …
The ever so controversial Sunday paper News of the World, which defies even the vilest of descriptions, is finally folding this weekend after 168 years after it got caught up in even more phone hacking scandals. The paper has raised eyebrow…
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