Get Over It

Once again, the case of  Omar Khadr is causing a firestorm. The Conservatives are up in arms. But Jamie Carroll reviews the facts of the case:

Notwithstanding his sins — or the sins of his family — Omar Khadr was a 15-year-old boy with Canadian citizenship when he was captured by U.S. troops following a firefight at a suspected al Qaida compound in Afghanistan in 2002 that resulted in the death of American army medic Sgt. Christopher Speer. His country didn’t give a rat’s ass about whether he lived or died for more than a decade.

Brought from Mississauga to the tribal regions of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border by his jihadist father when he was 14, Omar Khadr was taken from the scene of that firefight unconscious and very seriously wounded. When medics discovered him under the rubble left behind by A-10 Warthogs and other heavy ordinance, he repeatedly begged them to kill him. He was given initial medical treatment at Bagram AFB by United States military personnel. The extent and quality of that (and subsequent) treatment has never been clear.

For the next ten years — from the age of 16 to 26 – Omar Khadr was a prisoner of the United States government in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Housed with adult prisoners, he was subjected to ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ for months on end (following the death of another inmate, Khadr’s principle interrogator, Joshua Claus, was convicted of maltreatment and assault). Khadr eventually confessed to his captors.

During those same ten years, the Canadian government did almost nothing to secure Khadr’s removal to a non-military jurisdiction in the U.S., or to repatriate him home for trial in Canada. Oh, the usual paperwork was filled and letters sent, and a series of ministers (and prime ministers) expressed concern before the cameras when asked from time to time about “that Canadian kid in Gitmo.” But that was it.

The Supreme Court has decreed that Khadr's fundamental rights were violated and has directed the government to initiate a remedy.  There is a price to be paid when justice is delayed. You can bet that almost no one wanted to pay that price. But you can also bet that price comes with good legal advice.

The money should be paid -- and we should get over it.

Image: Awareness Film Night

John Galt Come To Life

Jill Abramson writes that we are witnessing the final stage of Baby Boomer dominance, which has been defined by the ascendancy of Ayn Rand. Rand's fingerprints are over the Senate health care bill:

It should be called The John Galt Bill after the hero of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the doorstopper of a novel that is akin to the Bible for certain conservative politicians, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, who hands out copies of the book to newly elected Members (The House version of the health care bill is even more Galtian than the Senate’s). It’s the only book I’m aware of that Donald Trump claims to have read.

Keep in mind that at her funeral in New York in 1982, “Ayn Rand’s body lay next to the symbol she had adopted as her own - a six-foot dollar sign,” according to Susan Chira who covered the service for the Times. A few years ago, The Atlas Society, which keeps the Rand flame alive, urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to “unleash our inner John Galt.” They must be celebrating because even they could not have come up with a more hard-hearted piece of legislation.

There are none who are the more Galtian than Donald Trump and his party. And the Galtians are having their revenge:

Since modern American politics is always a revenge cycle, one way to look at the Republican health repeal measures is as payback to Chief Justice John Roberts, who infuriated Republicans in 2012 when he sided with the US Supreme Court’s four liberals to uphold the Affordable Care Act. He finessed his decision by defining the individual mandate as a tax, citing congressional power to levy taxes. Now McConnell & Co are using that same power to repeal them and make the billionaires richer.

And Galtian influence is spreading beyond the shores of the United States:

In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates bully Qatar into bending to their will, as the Kurds forge on with their independence drive, both selfish moves that don’t even consider how they may destabilize the rest of the region. Pulling out of multi-lateral treaties, like the Paris and Trans-Pacific accords, because Trump says they don’t put US interests first is also supremely selfish, as Ignatius rightly points out. 

A significant number of us bought into what Rand called Objectivism. Others of us saw that the term was Orwellian. It was all about subjectivity. The ego was supreme. The term, like the lady herself, was a fraud.

Nonetheless, Mr. Trump is John Galt come to life.

Image: Proud Producers

All The President's Lies

The American Constitution allows uncivil speech. It does not allow lying. But, these days, it's not just ordinary American citizens who are lying. It's their president. Lawrence Douglas writes:

What happens when the source of uncivil speech is not some fringe hate group, but the occupant of the Oval Office? And what happens when the lies target the very organs designed to ferret them out? We have never faced such questions before in our history. Which explains why, on the 241st anniversary of our independence, American democracy finds itself in peril.

We have grown accustomed to the president’s lies, as recently inventoried in the New York Times. Yet such a simple enumeration fails to get at the danger. Consider Trump’s workhorse – that the mainstream media trucks in “fake news.”

If Trump were simply implying, without substantiation or proof, that the media routinely engages in unreliable reporting, this would be bad enough. But that is not the claim. Rather, it is that CNN, to take one favorite target, willfully fabricates false news to advance a partisan agenda.

In the present situation, democracy is in clear and present danger:

Mr Trump’s lies can better be understood as libels – they state falsehoods that malign their targets. As a sitting president, Mr Trump is, of course, immune from suit (just as he might be immune from indictment for having obstructed justice). But this does not change the libelous character of his speech.

What makes these libels so toxic is not the injury they do to the reputation of the New York Times or CNN, though certainly they may serve to discredit these organizations in the eyes of some segments of the public; it is the injury they do to our democracy. 

 That injury to democracy is what is behind the Russia investigation -- which Trump wants to quash:

The full danger of Trump’s uncivil speech becomes clear only when viewed through the filter of his defamation of our electoral process. The 2016 presidential election revealed genuine threats to the integrity of our voting system, and we have precise, reliable knowledge about their source.

But in his alarming testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, former FBI Director James Comey revealed that while the president repeatedly asked whether the FBI had targeted him personally, he failed to express the slightest interest in the deeper issue – Russia’s criminal tampering with our electoral process.  

When Trump took the Oath of Office he swore to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Of all his lies, that was the biggest.

No Einstein

The Trudeau government has spent a lot of effort trying to to stay on the good side of Donald Trump, fearing that he will rip up NAFTA. But a recent study concludes that Canada has less to fear from Trump than some believe. Tom Walkom writes:

Written by economist Pierre Laliberté and research fellow Scott Sinclair, the study — entitled “What is the NAFTA advantage?” — says that even without the pact, trade barriers between Canada and the U.S. would be relatively minor.

That’s because both countries adhere to rules set by the World Trade Organization that mandate minimal tariffs between member states.

Without NAFTA, 41 per cent of Canadian exports to the U.S. would still face no tariffs at all.

The remaining 59 per cent would face, on average, extremely modest tariffs. The authors calculate that the value of these extra tariffs would total roughly $4 billion a year — a relatively small amount when compared to annual exports of roughly $279 billion.

The authors also point out that Canada’s main aim in negotiating a deal with the U.S. — which was to obtain an exemption from that country’s often arbitrary trade laws — never materialized. The eternally recurring softwood lumber dispute is a testament to that.

That's not to say that walking away from NAFTA would not have costs:

The study doesn’t try to pretend that ending NAFTA would be costless. Some industries, such as agriculture, would be hit hard. Others, such as petroleum, would be barely affected.

But it does demonstrate that, for the most part, Canada’s economy could purr on quite contentedly without the pact.

That, in turn, means two things. First, Ottawa can safely walk out of the NAFTA talks if Trump’s demands are too outrageous. Second, Canada’s government need not twist its foreign and defence policies out of shape just to candy up to him.

During the past week, Trump the Bully has been on full blown display. His latest doctored video of him beating up on CNN is yet another example of his boarishness. But it also reminds us that Trump is no Einstein.

Some Diseases Refuse To Die

As Donald Trump shows his strange obsession with Mika Brzezinski, William Rivers Pitt asks the $64,000 question: Why is the Republican Party still here? After all,

the Republicans nominated and then elected a farcical caricature of a buffoon, a vulgarian oaf, a serial liar of Brobdingnagian proportions, a confessed misogynist and serial assaulter of women, a fact-free ignoramus too ego-blinded to recognize how much he doesn't know, to the highest office in the land. To the surprise of virtually no one, he has bollixed up the job so comprehensively that his approval rating currently hovers somewhere below pig offal, and in five short months he has become the most despised world leader since Caligula.

Trump can sign executive orders, but he and the Republicans can't pass legislation. Their signature piece of legislation is going down the tubes:

[Mitch] McConnell has blown his own caucus to shreds and tatters. Hard-line Republicans like Rand Paul revolted because the proposed bill looks too much like the Affordable Care Act, while more moderate senators like Dean Heller of Nevada balked because of the massive attack on Medicaid the bill represents. In other words, McConnell managed to piss off pretty much everyone, and no one seemed eager to charge to the bill's defense. In fact, a whole slew of fence-sitting Republican senators came out against it in a true profile in courage after McConnell yanked it from consideration on Tuesday.

The answer to Pitt's question isn't hard to find.  In fact, Pitt readily answers his own question:

Oh, right. Citizens United. Brutally racist voter suppression across a variety of vital states, combined with outright election theft in a number of instances. Partisan gerrymandering. Decades of right-wing domination of the media. A Democratic Party "opposition" beholden to most of the same corporate interests as the Republicans. A system so deeply mired in wildly discredited economic mythologies that it refuses to recognize its own imminent collapse. A population so thoroughly disgusted and dispirited by it all that only half of them bother to show up at the polls on a good day.

I get it.

Yet, in spite of it all, The Republican Party is still here. Some social diseases refuse to die.

Image: slideshare.net

150

Our 150th birthday is not quite as ebullient as our 100th. Perhaps we were just more naive back then. The teepee on Parliament Hill reminds us that our history is incomplete. And, God knows, our future is uncertain -- because the planet's future is uncertain.

Still, we have much for which to be thankful. We are a nation of immigrants who have -- for the most part -- found a welcoming home here. We still have plenty of room and bountiful resources. With those blessings come responsibilities.

As I get older, my respect for Mike Pearson grows. As a young Canadian, I saw him as a man with a lisp and a funny bow tie. In my old age I see him as a wise man who devoted his life to the quest for peace, knowing that peace was always elusive and hard won.

On this somewhat fractious Canada Day, I remember his take on world problems:

We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self interest.

Wise words. Happy Canada Day.

Image: Extraordinary Canadians

We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self-interest.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lesterbpe300118.html

We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self-interest.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lesterbpe300118.html

We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self-interest.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lesterbpe300118.html

They've Been Asleep

 
The Senate version of Trumpcare is nasty and cruel. It can't be called anything else. Then why, Paul Krugman asks, do the Republicans persist on pushing it? The answer, he writes, goes all the way back to Ronald Reagan:

One way to understand this ugly health plan is that Republicans, through their political opportunism and dishonesty, boxed themselves into a position that makes them seem cruel and immoral — because they are.

This story began with a politically convenient lie — the pretense, going all the way back to Ronald Reagan, that social safety net programs just reward lazy people who don’t want to work. And we all know which people in particular were supposed to be on the take.

Now, this was never true, and in an era of rising inequality and declining traditional industries, some of the biggest beneficiaries of these safety net programs are members of the Trump-supporting white working class. But the modern G.O.P. basically consists of career apparatchiks who live in an intellectual bubble, and those Reagan-era stereotypes still dominate their picture of struggling Americans.

Or to put it another way, Republicans start from a sort of baseline of cruelty toward the less fortunate, of hostility toward anything that protects families against catastrophe.

In this sense there’s nothing new about their health plan. What it does — punish the poor and working class, cut taxes on the rich — is what every major G.O.P. policy proposal does. The only difference is that this time it’s all out in the open.

The Republicans are stuck in the "80's, when Reagan savaged welfare queens. Globalization has left millions of Americans dependent on government welfare programs. And -- somehow -- the Republican Party missed that development.

They've been asleep for a long time.

Image: Plays For Young Audiences

Trump Wants A War

That is Thomas Homer-Dixon's opinion. Trump wants a war because he believes he cannot let the Russia investigation continue. He needs an excuse to fire Robert Mueller:

Mr. Trump desperately wants to end this investigation. It casts doubt on the legitimacy of his presidency, hints that his hold on office is precarious and suggests, ultimately, he isn’t the “winner” he so badly needs to be. So, his slander machine has begun discrediting Mr. Mueller and the inquiry. Supporters such as former house speaker Newt Gingrich are raising questions about the impartiality of the special counsel and the lawyers he’s hiring for his team.

He does not possess the extraordinary powers to get rid of Mueller. But war would grant him those powers:

So, commentators have generally concluded that the Mueller inquiry is safe. But two factors will destabilize the current equilibrium over time. The first will be Mr. Trump’s rising motivation to stop Mr. Mueller’s inquiry as it progresses. Pursuing the Russian connection, the special counsel will probably ask the Internal Revenue Service to hand over Mr. Trump’s tax returns. Many astute observers think the reason the President hasn’t released his returns is that they contain proof of compromising financial links with Russia. If that’s indeed the case, Mr. Trump will do everything he can to prevent their release.

The second factor will be Mr. Trump’s manipulation of the broader political environment in which Congress and the presidency operate. As Jack Goldstone, an expert on state failure, and I argued before the 2016 election, Mr. Trump can generate “a new political and social reality – an ‘emergency’ in the U.S. and around the world – that justifies … attacks on democratic institutions.”

The most likely emergency of this kind is a war, because U.S. presidents have the most room for independent action on the international stage. Also, the start of a war almost always produces a “rally round the flag” effect and a big boost in presidential poll numbers. According to Gallup, George W. Bush saw a 13-per-cent surge in approval at the start of the Iraq invasion in 2003. In the opening days of a new war, a similar surge in Mr. Trump’s poll numbers could encourage congressional Republicans to back the President, should he move to fire Mr. Mueller simultaneously.

Some might consider Homer Dixon's scenario improbable. But, to those familiar with Trump and his history, the scenario doesn't appear to be at all far fetched. It's all too likely.

 Image: You Tube

Beware Northern Populism

According to a new Pew Research poll, Canadians are not impressed with Donald Trump. Only 22% of us have confidence in the Trump presidency. But Tim Harper reminds us that, before we get too smug, we should take a good, hard look at ourselves:

We can dismiss the Mississauga racist rant in the health clinic, or the Alberta burning of a pride flag, or tiny anti-Muslim protests as isolated events that do not tell us who we are, but if you want to dismiss them, ignore them at your peril.

We should be looking at Indigenous complaints against the police in Thunder Bay or the disproportionate police interaction with Blacks and Indigenous youth in our cities.

We should study Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard’s words when he said, in the wake of the stabbing of a Michigan police officer by a Montreal man, “you cannot disconnect this type of event, terrorism, from Islam in general.’’

And we should give further thought to a Statistics Canada report on hate crimes released earlier this month which showed a 60 per cent jump in police-reported hate crimes against Muslims in 2015. Hate crimes are underreported and those numbers are two years old and no one thinks it has gotten better since 2015.

Kellie Leitch's campaign for the Conservative leadership touched an uncomfortable nerve:

Yes, Kellie Leitch fell flat with her “values test” platform in the recent Conservative leadership race, but polling data showed support for her position after she announced it and Graves suggests her poor showing was more a product of a poor campaign. He reminds that Stephen Harper’s support actually grew for a period after he took a harder line on refugees following powerful photos of young Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body on a Turkish beach. 

Angus Reid Associates also released numbers this week that, at first glance, appeared to show this country embracing diversity. Respondents were asked whether they would vote for a party led by a woman, a gay man, a lesbian, a transgendered person, a Jew, a Black, an Indigenous Canadian and so on.

Only 58 per cent of Canadians would back a party led by a Muslim, only 45 per cent in Quebec.

A man wearing a religious head covering would be rejected by 42 per cent of Canadians.

A woman wearing a religious head covering would be rejected by 47 per cent of Canadians. In Quebec, the rejection rate jumps to 64 and 66 per cent respectively.

So let's be honest with ourselves: Northern populism is afoot in the Great White North. We must confront it -- and not deny its existence. 

Image: anti-racistcanada.blogspot.com

Time To Jettison Failed Ideas

On our 100th birthday, Michael Valpy writes that "we fell in love with ourselves." But, on our 150th birthday, our mood has changed:

A recent exploration by polling firm EKOS Research reports that the importance of many long-time salient symbols of our sense of nationhood is dramatically eroding.

Canadians report that the significance to their national identity of the beaver, the maple leaf, the flag, “O Canada,” hockey — yes, hockey — the Grey Cup, Parliament Hill, cultural diversity, tolerance, official bilingualism, Canada Day, Remembrance Day and the RCMP have all declined.

For the first time since EKOS began asking the question in the 1990s, the number of Canadians who think the country is admitting too many immigrants who are not white has passed the 40 per cent mark — meaning we’re not only souring on so many traditional national symbols we appear to be becoming more racist.

The racism has always been there. But these days, it's more blatant. Nevertheless, we have come to terms with our French heritage. Frank Graves believes that, "what’s been established is a new healthy détente where Quebecers are able to pursue their own thing and there’s a nice civic nationalism where we agree on things.”

Still, there has been a souring of the public mood, which Graves attributes to four phenomena:

• Increased pluralism.

• Confusion left behind by the previous government’s effort to reorder some of our symbols — the emphasis on military history, for example; the de-emphasis on the Charter.

• A pessimistic sense among ordinary Canadians that progress is ending, inequality is rising and waving the flag won’t help.

• Dark clouds over mainly Conservative voters who constitute 25 to 30 per cent of the electorate and are much more economically fearful, allergic to immigration and globalization, mistrustful of elites and nostalgic for white privilege than the rest of their fellow citizens. Sixty per cent tell EKOS they would have voted for Donald Trump as U.S. president compared to three per cent of Liberal supporters. We’re increasingly two Canadas (or three or four) with a vanishing middle ground.

We are living in the wake of neo-liberalism -- which has left a sour taste wherever it has been adopted. It's time to jettison failed ideas.

Millions Of Americans Are Cheering

The American Senate's version of Trumpcare is a nasty piece of work. And Republicans are doing everything they can to keep their fellow citizens in the dark. Robert Reich writes:

America’s wealthiest taxpayers (earning more than $200,000 a year, $250,000 for couples) would get a tax cut totaling $346bn over 10 years, representing what they save from no longer financing healthcare for lower-income Americans.

That’s not all. The bill would save an additional $400bn on Medicaid, which Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and Donald Trump are intent on shrinking in order to cut even more taxes for the wealthy and for big corporations.

If enacted, it would be the largest single transfer of wealth to the rich from the middle class and poor in American history.

But the legislation is structured to hide those facts:

The Senate bill appears to retain the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies for poorer Americans. But starting in 2020, the subsidies would no longer be available for many of the working poor who now receive them, nor for anyone who’s not eligible for Medicaid.

Another illusion: the bill seems to keep the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. But the expansion is phased out, starting in 2021.

The core of the bill – where its biggest savings come from – is a huge reduction in Medicaid, America’s healthcare program for the poor, elderly and disabled.

This, too, is disguised. States would receive an amount of money per Medicaid recipient that appears to grow as healthcare costs rise.

But starting in 2025, the payments would be based on how fast costs rise in the economy as a whole.

Yet medical costs are rising faster than overall costs. They’ll almost surely continue to do so – as America’s elderly population grows, and as new medical devices, technologies, and drugs prolong life.

Which means that after 2025, Medicaid coverage will shrink.

Like their president, the Republicans are fundamentally dishonest and morally bankrupt. And millions of Americans are cheering them on.

 Image: Quartz

It's Not Easy

In the era of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbin, Tim Harper writes that the NDP is going to have to take a hard left turn. The template for their platform already exists in British Columbia:

If one wants to see what the federal New Democrats will likely put on the table for voters in 2019, the template is in British Columbia.

It will pledge real electoral change.

It will work toward Indigenous decolonization and real reconciliation, not the symbolic reconciliation so far favoured by Trudeau.

It will take a much tougher line on pipelines and climate change.

It will aggressively tax the rich and impose tough levies on real estate speculators.

It will pledge to overturn economic inequality and pledge solutions to precarious employment, rejecting Finance Minister Bill’s Morneau acceptance of it as a fait accompli.

There will no longer be talk of balanced budgets. There will be no more kid gloves with corporate taxes. They will likely push to lower the voting age to 16.

But, at the moment, nobody is paying attention to the Dippers' leadership race. And, across the country, several provincial parties have worries of their own:

New Democrats in British Columbia have no time to focus on this race. They are on the cusp of government in an ongoing political drama on the West Coast.

That saga is also drawing all the attention of Alberta New Democrats who are consumed with what an NDP-Green alliance in B.C. will do about a major pipeline expansion that has federal approval.

Manitoba New Democrats are focused on choosing Ojibwa Wab Kinew, a rapper, broadcaster and author, as its next leader.

These days, it's not easy being Orange. 

Image: Maclean's

Who Knows?

When Donald Trump ascended to the presidency, many worried that Europe would follow his lead and be drowned by a wave of right wing populism. Tony Burman writes that what many feared hasn't happened:

Here in Germany, Angela Merkel has an 11-point polling lead in her campaign to win a fourth term as chancellor. Her party currently stands at 36 per cent; far down the list is Germany’s far-right party at only nine per cent. In neighbouring France, newly elected President Emmanuel Macron — Merkel’s new best friend — has just led his party to an overwhelming majority in France’s National Assembly.

Perhaps foreshadowing Germany’s vote in September, Europe’s far-right parties have fared poorly in recent elections in Austria, the Netherlands, Britain and, most recently, France. In addition, economic growth throughout much of Europe is expanding faster than projected.

The Europeans have been down that road before. And they don't want to go there again:

Polls suggest that Trump’s disruptive presidency has horrified most Europeans and has made them more likely to vote for leaders whom they see as moderate.

This has meant an apparent changing-of-the-guard in terms of the traditional leadership of the western alliance. A deepening relationship between Germany and France — between Merkel and Macron — will have serious implications. Instead of Trump, these European leaders will increasingly be seen as the most credible standard bearers of the world’s liberal and democratic order.

And, in the wake of Theresa May's defeat, some are suggesting that Britons might want to seriously re-think their decision to head for the exits:

As negotiations began over the details of the proposed “divorce,” European Council president Donald Tusk suggested that it’s not too late for Britain to change its mind and remain within the European Union. Quoting lyrics from a John Lennon song, Tusk said: “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”

But his remarks likely fit into the same category as that other bit of breathtaking Brexit news this week.

When the Queen opened the new session of the U.K. parliament on Wednesday, she wore a hat decorated with an arc of papal blue flowers each with a yellow disc at its centre, and this created a storm on Twitter.

In the words of the right-wing Daily Mail newspaper, her hat looked “suspiciously like” the European Union flag, prompting the BBC to quote another Twitter posting: “Nice to see queenie dressed as the EU flag.”

Who knows how this story will end? 

Image: New York Times

Perhaps They're Right

The Republican Party has dropped all its pretences. With Donald Trump in the White House, they no longer have to pretend that their mission is to protect the little guy. Their mission is to advance the interests of the wealthy. The health care bill that the Senate released yesterday offers incontrovertible proof of that. Paul Krugman writes:

The substance is terrible: tens of millions of people will experience financial distress if this passes, and tens if not hundreds of thousands will die premature deaths, all for the sake of tax cuts for a handful of wealthy people. What’s even more amazing is that Republicans are making almost no effort to justify this massive upward redistribution of income. They’re doing it because they can, because they believe that the tribalism of their voters is strong enough that they will continue to support politicians who are ruining their lives.

The Republican mission has been the same for a long time. But they used to sugar coat their rhetoric with bromides about the common good. No more:

In the past, laws that would take from the poor and working class while giving to the rich came with excuses. Tax cuts, their sponsors declared, would unleash market dynamism and make everyone more prosperous. Deregulation would increase efficiency and lower prices. It was all voodoo; the promises never came true. But at least there was some pretence of working for the common good.

Now we have none of this. This bill does nothing to reduce health care costs. It does nothing to improve the functioning of health insurance markets – in fact, it will send them into death spirals by reducing subsidies and eliminating the individual mandate. There is nothing at all in the bill that will make health care more affordable for those currently having trouble paying for it. And it will gradually squeeze Medicaid, eventually destroying any possibility of insurance for millions.

Never mind that the bill betrays the very people who put them in office. The Republicans believe their base is stupid enough to keep voting for them. Perhaps they're right.

Image: salon.com

No Vacancy

Donald Trump is coming to Canada next May to attend the G7 Conference. He should not be invited to extend his stay or to come back. Bob Hepburn writes:

Over the years, American presidents have visited Canada numerous times. Barack Obama came twice, first in 2009 for a working visit to Ottawa and then in 2010 when he was in Toronto and Huntsville for the G8 and G20 summits. George W. Bush visited four times and Bill Clinton came five times, including a 2005 state visit during which he addressed Parliament.

But Trump is a special exception:

But none of those presidents were as irresponsible, hostile, arrogant and ignorant as Trump, a man who has done more to unleash the racist, bigoted undertone of America than any U.S. leader in any of our lifetimes.

At the same time, Trump is working hard to hurt Canada by withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, picking fights with Canada over trade issues ranging from renegotiating NAFTA to imposing punitive tariffs on our exports and disparaging our defence spending.

Also, Trump displays open signs of Islamophobia, trying to bar refugees and visitors from seven mainly Muslim countries and tweeting almost instantly his disgust with Muslim terrorists for attacks in England and France, but remaining silent when a white man killed Muslims at a Quebec City mosque earlier this year or when a white man drove a van into a peaceful Muslim crowd outside a mosque this week in London.

There will be protests wherever Trump goes. As a landlord, he knows what it means when a No Vacancy sign goes up in the window.

Image: Huffington Post

Mulroney's Take On Trump

The old saw about politics making strange bedfellows remains as true as ever. Consider the alliance between Justin Trudeau and Brian Mulroney. Tim Harper writes:

Certainly in the past, Liberal prime ministers have turned to former Liberal prime ministers for wise counsel and Conservatives have done likewise, even though Stephen Harper once issued a government-wide edict that Mulroney was persona non grata because of what was finally found to be Mulroney’s inappropriate dealing with discredited former arms industry lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber.

Mulroney has always kept in touch with Justin. In the hothouse of Montreal social circles, it could not be otherwise. And he saw the younger Trudeau's potential years ago. Trudeau, for his part, saw Mulroney's connections with Trump as invaluable:

Enter informal advisor Mulroney, who says he was approached by a Trudeau team which had put “all its eggs in Hillary (Clinton’s) basket and woke up the next morning and realized they knew no one on the other side.”

Mulroney said the Trudeau government was not alone in the centre-left expecting a Clinton win and “wanted it to happen in the worst way.”

And Trump is not keeping Mulroney awake at night:

He says, there is no reason for Canadians to be worried about Trump.

“No, why should we worry?” he asks.

I suggested the man was capable of tweeting the world into a war.

From Mulroney: “Don’t take the bait!

“That’s just Donald being Donald. He’s unorthodox and unusual, yes, but that’s why the American people voted for him."

Time will tell if Mulroney's take on Trump is accurate. 

Image: The Toronto Star

Inspiration Is Hard To Come By

There are those who believe that the world is going to hell in an authoritarian hand basket. David Leonhardt suggests that they  -- and we -- should look at voter turnout numbers:

If liberals voted at the same rate as conservatives, Hillary Clinton would be president. Even with Donald Trump’s working-class appeal, Clinton could have swept Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

If liberals voted at the same rate as conservatives, Democrats would control the Senate. Clinton or Barack Obama could then have filled the recent Supreme Court vacancy, and that justice would hold the tiebreaking vote on campaign finance, labor unions and other issues.

If liberals voted at the same rate as conservatives, the country would be doing more to address the two defining issues of our time — climate change and stagnant middle-class living standards. Instead, Trump is making both worse.

Breaking down the numbers reveals why Donald Trump is president of the United States:

Polls show that a majority of Americans support progressive positions on most big issues. Yet Republicans dominate state and federal government.

Turnout is a big reason. Last year, Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 voted for Clinton over Trump in a landslide. Only 43 percent of citizens in that age group voted, however. By contrast, Americans over age 65 supported Trump — and 71 percent of them voted. Similarly, Americans in their 30s were more likely to support Clinton, and less likely to vote, than those in their 50s.

The pattern also exists across ethnic groups. Asian and Hispanic voters went for Clinton in a bigger landslide than millennials, but most Asian and Hispanic citizens didn’t vote.

And the gaps grow even larger in midterm elections. A mere 17 percent — 17 percent! — of Americans between 18 and 24 voted in 2014, compared with 59 percent of seniors.

So you may want to blame the young. Leonhardt suggests than rather than casting blame, progressives should inspire young voters: 

My instinct is that the answer for Democrats involves a passionate message of fairness — of providing jobs, lifting wages, protecting rights and fighting Trump’s plutocracy. It can be bolder than Democrats have been in decades. But it should not resemble a complete progressive wish list, which could turn off swing voters without even raising turnout.

Unfortunately, these days, inspiration is hard to come by. 

Image: quotesgram

It's Catching

Donald Trump's last cabinet meeting was stomach churning. Each member of the Trump team -- with the exception of James Mattis -- dutifully genuflected before the president. Reince Priebus said it was a "blessing serving your agenda."  Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue gushed that in rural America "they love you."

Michael Harris writes that the majority of Americans are not on side with the cabinet -- for many reasons:

Gallup, by the way, painted a different picture of a president VP Pence called “a truly wonderful man.” It’s most recent poll showed a 59 per cent disapproval rating of the president’s performance to date.

The rolling out of Trump’s new Cuba policy was nearly as ghastly as the cabinet meeting. It was a triumph of 1950’s Cold War rhetoric over substance. It was the aluminium siding salesman striking again.

Trump has so openly and egregiously turned the U.S. government into a highly profitable branch of the Trump business empire that he is now being sued by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia.

They allege that his inescapable involvement in his family business violates the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Hard to argue: President Trump has doubled membership fees at Mar-a-Lago and China has given him a slew of valuable licenses despite its own law barring the use of foreign leaders names as trademarks.

It's madness. And it's catching.

Image: democraticmoms.com

We'll Have To Wait And See

There are deep divisions in the New Democratic Party. It's is not the first time the party has faced the problem. Robin Sears writes:

In 1939, M.J. Coldwell risked splitting the CCF over his support for the Second World War, while his pacifist leader, J.S. Woodworth, was opposed. Except that the two men worked out an agreement that permitted party members to agree to disagree. Woodsworth maintained his honour and kept his leadership, although most party members were deeply committed to the fight against fascism.

In 1981, when the NDP struggled with one premier who supported the Charter of Rights and one who vehemently did not, with similar divisions across the party, Ed Broadbent and Allan Blakeney worked hard to prevent the disagreement from splitting the party. A vigorous convention battle ensued, but one that left no blood on the floor.

This time the issue is pipelines. B.C.'s Dippers are opposed to them. Rachel Notley's government favours them.  What's to be done? Sears doesn't offer a prescription. But he does give Dippers some free advice. In the past,

New Democratic Party leaders and activists . . . worked hard to ensure it did not happen,  smacked hard those who would use deep party differences for personal career gain, and  understood the restraint and caution that moments like these must entail.

Does it take courage for a Vancouver MP to grandstand at the expense of party unity in a leadership race about a controversial project deeply unpopular to his own base?

Is it wise, if you’re the only woman candidate, to fling epithets at the supporters of one of Canada’s — and one of the party’s — most admirable woman leaders.

Does it demonstrate leadership to deride a competing candidate seeking to find the balance a federal party’s leader must necessarily strike on internally divisive issues?

The questions answer themselves.

We live in a time where unbridled ego seems to trump party. We'll have to wait and see what happens with the Dippers.

Image: ceasefire.ca

That's All There Was

Ruth Marcus writes that, in forty years, she's never seen anything like it:

Sometimes my role as a columnist is to advise readers not to overreact, to maintain perspective. Today my advice is to buckle up. Brace yourselves.

I’m not sure for what, exactly. President Trump firing Rod J. Rosenstein or taking moves that would force the deputy attorney general, and perhaps others, to quit? Firing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, whose probe has pushed Trump to this frenzied state? Using his pardon power in an effort to shut down the investigation, on the theory that Mueller would then have nothing left to probe? Pardoning himself, a move of contested legality that even Richard Nixon balked at? Facing impeachment proceedings, however unlikely that may be with a Republican-controlled Congress? 

Donald Trump is a tangled mess of inconsistencies. But there is one consistent thread that ties them all together. He believes he is a victim:

He perceives himself as the ultimate victim — first of a double standard under which he is blamed while Hillary Clinton and her allies, such as former attorney general Loretta Lynch, escape responsibility. “Crooked H destroyed phones w/ hammer, ‘bleached’ emails, & had husband meet w/AG days before she was cleared- & they talk about obstruction?” Trump tweeted.

The second, perhaps even more deeply felt, aspect of Trump’s victimhood involves his conviction that any investigation of him constitutes an unfair attack by political enemies. “They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story,” he tweeted. “You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history — led by some very bad and conflicted people!”

Trump discovered his inner child seven decades ago. And he discovered that's all there was.

Image: discussionist.com