Carbox Taxes

It's disconcerting to see how conservatives tout ideas -- until other people implement them. Then they go on a tear and furiously reject them. Mitt Romney developed a health insurance program for Massachusetts, then conservatives branded it Obamacare and tried to get rid of it. The same is true of the carbon tax. Gillian Steward writes:

Whatever the labels — carbon taxes, carbon pricing, or putting a price on pollution — they are actually conservative ideas. Prominent Conservatives such as Preston Manning, and former Alberta Treasurer Jim Dinning started promoting the idea years ago. Mark Cameron, former policy director in the prime minister’s office under Stephen Harper recently stated that Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax plan is a “smart conservative policy.”

Andrew Leach, an energy and environmental economist at the University of Alberta and one of the architects of Alberta’s climate change strategy earlier this year told a parliamentary committee studying Trudeau’s carbon pricing legislation that carbon pricing “leverages the power of the market to enable emission reductions.” Instead of relying on government edicts and regulations, individuals will make decisions about how much fossil fuel they want to use given the price.

That kind of talk should be music to the ears of a conservative.

But  that isn't the case. Jason Kenny, Doug Ford and Andrew Scheer are committed to killing a carbon tax -- because it is a tax. And Rachel Notley is, of course, a left wing apostate:

Since carbon pricing is a key part of NDP Premier Rachel Notley’s climate change policies and has been in place for over two years, it could well become the main issue in the next election. Especially since the NDP hoped carbon pricing would thwart opposition to oil pipelines in the rest of Canada: a strategy that has so far failed.

But at least Notley had a plan that attempted to recognize both the fossil fuel industry as a key economic driver and the need to reduce carbon emissions.

Neither Kenney, Ford, nor Scheer have any such plan.

Kenny, Ford and Scheer are sailing -- like  the rest of us -- on the Titanic. And they'll party until it goes under.

Image: elitedaily.com

A Farmer's Lot

I'll have something to say about the new trade agreement when more details are available. However, I understand that Canada's farmers will make concessions under the deal. I'm a city kid. But for forty-five of my seventy one years, my neighbours have been farmers. And a new study concerns me. Kelsey Johnson writes:

Canadian farmers are dangerously stressed out, a reality that’s putting this country’s farm families, rural communities, and entire agriculture industry at risk.

“We can’t have a sustainable food system in Canada if we don’t have sustainable farmers,” Andria Jones-Bitton, an associate professor from the University of Guelph who specializes in farmers’ mental health, told the House agriculture committee on Sept. 27.

When we lived in the Eastern Townships, I got to know several dairy farmers. They were stressed out by milk quotas. But they also understood that those quotas made them sustainable. It sounds like the quota system will be altered -- whether for better or worse remains to be seen.

One statistic is particularly troubling:

It’s estimated Canada’s farm community sees 20 to 30 per cent more suicides compared to other sectors. While Canadian data are limited, a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. found the risk of suicide among farmers was five times higher than for the average American.

In June, Michael Hoffort, the president of Farm Credit Canada (this country’s main agricultural lender) told MPs that in two and a half months, the credit union had already provided emergency funding to 67 families – eight of which involved suicides.

Farmers carry crushing debt loads. And, if they perceive they will never get out from under them, suicide may seem like the only option.

What's to be done?

Coordination between provinces, health professionals and agricultural experts, [Jones-Britton] said, is critical. Programs, she stressed, “need to actually work,” and be designed so that farmers will actually use them.

Those delivering the programs, [she] added, must understand agriculture in order to gain farmers’ trust. Prevention is also critical.

Let's hope Canada's farmers haven't been hung out to dry. A farmer's lot can be perilous.

Image: Telegraph-Journal

From Queen's Park To Jurassic Park

Yesterday, in this space, I wrote about misogyny in the United States. But Ontarians shouldn't be smug. We suffer from the same disease. Jennifer Howlett was a candidate for office in a 47 seat Toronto City Council. But now that Doug Ford has slashed the size of the council to 25 seats, she has dropped out of the race. She writes in The Globe and Mail:

At present, 32 per cent of Toronto’s city council is made up of women. The numbers drop significantly when we look at women of colour and/or LGBTQ councillors. There are also many systemic class barriers to elections. This is one of the reasons why a diverse range of new candidates entered the 47-ward city-council race. It was an opportunity to elect a new cohort of councillors who truly reflect the people of Toronto. Municipal elections, especially races in new wards or wards without incumbents, are an entry point for many into political life.

Now, in the 25-ward scenario, the majority of the ward I intended to run in becomes a megaward made up of four others, with two city councillors in the race. As I outlined in my affidavit in the court challenge to Bill 5, I would never have quit my job and made the decision to enter that race. I have no interest in running against Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, a progressive, a friend and a mentor to many women interested in city politics. She’s also the only woman of colour on city council, and the only out queer councillor. A true city leader.

Ausma Malik, the first hijab-wearing Muslim woman to be elected to public office in Canada as school board trustee, is also no longer running for city council now that it is a 25-ward race. A big loss for the city. We both know many women who are continuing to run, even though they face much tougher and bigger races. Pollsters and journalists are already looking at the new map and making predictions at who will likely win. My friends and I did the same recently, on the back of a restaurant receipt. Based on the incumbent advantage, breakthroughs for new candidates are unlikely.

The deck has been stacked. And the challenges Howlett faced were already significant:

To run for office and win, I’ve learned you have to be strategic: You have to identify an opportunity with a path to victory, and have the resources to get you there. And you have to be fully committed, clearing your work and personal schedule to canvass day and night, and have the savings to cover the costs of living during that time. For parents, it becomes a third full-time job on top of kids and career.

You also have to be able to put yourself out there, physically and virtually. Always on, upbeat and positive, despite anything and everything others will say. To quote a recent troll of mine on Twitter: “I checked out your election site and noted you have the same heavy thigh and glute areas as fat Hillary Clinton. Perhaps it’s time to consider a wardrobe of colorful pantsuits.” This is on top of continued unsolicited advice on how to run your campaign, as well as friends of opponents suggesting you shouldn’t run at all.

What's at the bottom of it all?

Mr. Ford is threatened by our power. And there was power in the 47-ward system, power in the organizing taking place across our city, power in new and effective representation. And that is why Mr. Ford did everything he could to suppress candidates. 

Under Doug Ford, Queen's Park has become Jurassic Park.

Image: The Globe and Mail

Sleeping Through The Changes

What was on display during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing last week was toxic masculinity. Jonathan Freedland writes:

It was the nominee himself who delivered a masterclass in male privilege, flushed and raging at the impudence of those who dared stand between him and the seat he believed was his right. He gave explanations that were so implausible they simply had to be false, he implied without evidence that one female Democratic senator had a drink problem, he lashed out at a supposed leftwing conspiracy, alleging this was all “the revenge of the Clintons” coming across as a partisan political hack with an honesty problem rather than a would-be member of the nation’s highest court.

It was a performance right out of Donald Trump's playbook -- which is why, when it was over, Trump tweeted, “Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him.”

Trump has established the template. But that same template is on display in several places:

Competition in the global misogyny league comes from Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, whose response to the rape and killing of an Australian missionary in the town where he was once mayor was to say, “They raped her, they lined up. I was angry because … she was so beautiful, the mayor should have been first. What a waste.” Meanwhile, Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary distributes primary school textbooks that have revived the part of a traditional children’s song that cheerfully describes men beating their wives as a normal part of family life. In Britain, our own wannabe Trump is Boris Johnson who, when looking to take a cheap, rabble-rousing shot at Muslims, aimed his fire at Muslim women and their appearance.

Freedland believes that, besides a personality disorder, what is behind these ugly displays is the perception among  a lot of men that "their status has been shaken by the shifts of the last several decades."

Indeed, the world has changed. But men like Kavanaugh, the Republican senators and Donald Trump have slept through the changes.

Image: balleralert.com

A Sinkhole Of A Country

It was a volcanic day in Washington. It was all about he said/she said. It didn't have to be. The  FBI could have investigated the charges. In fact, the American Bar Association is now demanding that the nomination be put on hold until such an investigation is completed. But that's not going to happen. The Republicans will, in Mitch McConnell's words "plow ahead" with Kavanaugh's confirmation. So who's lying? Jonathan Chait writes that he's come to the conclusion that it's Kavanaugh:

Why do I believe Kavanaugh is lying? The charges are credible, and his accusers are willing to put themselves at risk, with no apparent gain to bring them to the public. Kavanaugh has said too many things that strain credulity for all them to be plausibly true. He almost certainly lied about having had access to files stolen by Senate Republicans back when he was handling judicial nominations in the Bush administration. His explanation that the “Renate Alumni” was not a sexual reference is difficult to square with a fellow Renate Alumnus’s poem ( “You need a date / and it’s getting late / so don’t hesitate / to call Renate”) portraying her as a cheap date. His insistence “boof” and “devil’s triangle” from his yearbook were references to flatulence and a drinking game drew incredulous responses from people his age who have heard these terms. His claim that the “Beach Week Ralph Club” was a reference to a weak stomach seems highly unlikely.

He who is willing to lie about small matters will lie about larger matters. And then there is the matter of Kavanaugh's judicial temperament:

He has, for one thing, all but abandoned the posture of impartiality demanded of a judge. A ranting Kavanaugh launched angry, evidence-free charges against Senate Democrats. “The behavior of several of the Democratic members of this committee at my hearing a few weeks ago was an embarrassment. But at least it was just a good old-fashioned attempt at Borking,” he said, using a partisan term invented by Republicans to complain about ideological scrutiny of an extreme judicial nominee. “This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled by pent-up anger over President Trump in the 2016 election.”

Kavanaugh claimed that this was all about the Clintons exacting their revenge. And, on the subject of judicial temperament, consider Lindsey's Graham's tirade. Graham claims he's been a judge. "This is the most unethical sham since I've been in politics," he bellowed.

Regardless of whether or not Kavanaugh is guilty as charged, in the final analysis, it's abundantly clear that the United States is a sinkhole of a country.

Are you paying attention, Justin?

Image: You Tube

If His Tongue Were Notarized

Having delivered a review of the province's books -- which took six weeks to complete -- Doug Ford says that Kathleen Wynne's Liberals were criminals. Martin Regg Cohn writes:

Listen to Ford’s inflammatory, defamatory language: “If you lie on your taxes ... there are consequences..... A lot of Liberals got rich under Kathleen Wynne.”

Yet more implications of criminality and venality: “If you tried to pull this kind of coverup in the private sector, the (Ontario Securities Commission) would come calling. The police would come calling ... We are not going to let Kathleen Wynne and her cronies walk away from their $15-billion scandal.”

And finally, what did you know, and when did you know it: “Who authorized the coverup?”

But there was no cover up. The figures were there in black and white. The issue was which numbers went into the credit column and which ones went into the debit column. Like the man south of the border, Ford has no respect for the truth:

As for that supposedly damning forensic audit, it was no such thing. Peter Bethlenfalvy, the minister who ordered it up, sheepishly admitted to reporters later that it was produced by private sector “consultants” at EY Canada — not qualified auditors in the firm’s audit department. It was “not a forensic audit, not a line by line review,” he acknowledged.

Awkwardly for the Tories, the quickie study noted that spending increases within the Ontario public service were virtually zero during the Liberal years. What has risen, significantly, is spending on health care and education — precisely what Ford promised not to cut on the campaign trail.

Doug Ford is a thug. He's always been a thug. And what the deputy mayor of New York said of Donald Trump decades ago also applies to Ford today: "I wouldn't believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized."

Image: You Tube

Nightmare At The U.N.

Donald Trump addressed the U.N. yesterday and he had them rolling in the aisles. After all, absurdity can be down right funny. Dana Milbank writes:

The world is now laughing at us — specifically, at our president.

“In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country,” Trump boasted, in typical fashion, to world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. “So true,” he added, as if addressing a campaign rally.

But the rest of his speech wasn't funny at all:

It felt as though Triumph the Insult Comic Dog had been unleashed in the General Assembly.

Not only did Trump criticize the usual suspects — Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and particularly Iran — but he also attacked China, the 15-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the 164-nation World Trade Organization, the U.N. Human Rights Council, Germany, the International Criminal Court, socialist countries (what did the Scandinavians ever do to him?), and the United Nations’ two-month-old Global Compact on Migration. He threatened recipients of U.S. foreign aid — almost all of South America, Africa, Eastern Europe and South Asia — and reiterated his vow to cut payments for peacekeeping.

By the end of the barrage, he had taunted nations that are home to perhaps 90 percent of the world’s population. Billions of people dissed in half an hour? Even for Trump that’s huge.

Trump's ignorance was on full display. The man who avoided service in Vietnam doesn't know what so many other soldiers died for in World War II:

Each time he used the word “global,” it was as an epithet, disparaging the very principle on which the world body was founded amid the ashes of World War II. America rejects “global governance, control and domination,” he said, and “we will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable global bureaucracy,” and “we reject the ideology of globalism and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.”

Trump confirmed Samuel Johnson's observation that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. And he confirmed that the Ugly American is back -- and on steroids. The laughter quickly died and the delegates shook their heads. How else should they have responded to Freddie Kruger at the U.N?

Image: Looper

He Doesn't Know Much At All

Over the weekend, Faith Goldy attended Ford Fest for the sixth time. She gained notoriety by appearing on the Neo-Nazi website Storm Trooper and Ezra Levant's Rebel Media. After supporting the white nationalists in Charlottesville, Levant banned her from his platform. But she's welcome in Ford Nation and, as Martin Regg Cohn writes,

Now, she is the fringe mayoral candidate who famously posed with Ford over the weekend, and whose photo has gone viral — putting the premier in political peril.

To be fair, our popular and populist premier poses for photos all the time, not least when he hosts thousands of people at a weekend “Ford Fest” with free food and drinks for his base.

Could this be a case of mistaken identity? A blind spot — personal, political, historical — earnestly explained and easily excused?

Faith Goldy, however, is not just any supporter, even if this is her sixth Ford Fest. Accompanied by her entourage of campaign volunteers wearing election T-shirts, she stands out in a crowd.

Given the opportunity to walk back that photograph, Ford refused to do so:

Ford refused to denounce or renounce Goldy and their shared photo in its aftermath Monday. Instead, as a hushed legislature awaited his explanation, he lapsed into partisan rhetoric and personal boasting that left his own Progressive Conservative MPPs uncharacteristically subdued, averting their glances, sitting on their hands.

Does Ford not know his history, our history, world history? Does the premier not know the perennial story of racism and anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and homophobia? Could someone in cabinet or caucus explain to him the role of a political leader as the embodiment of tolerance and defender of diversity?

Ford , like the song says, doesn't know much about history. Clearly, he doesn't know much at all.

Image: The Toronto Star

It Can't Be Redeemed

As new allegations of his sexual misconduct arose over the weekend, Republicans doubled down on their defence of Brett Kavanaugh. If you're searching for the motivation behind their behaviour, E.J. Dionne writes, take a good look at the Christian evangelicals who form the base of the party:

They want Kavanaugh on the court, no matter what. “If Republicans were to fail to defend and confirm such an obviously and eminently qualified and decent nominee,” Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, told the New York Times, “then it will be very difficult to motivate and energize faith-based and conservative voters in November.”

Note that Reed warned against the failure to “defend” Kavanaugh. Republicans intend to prove their willingness to stand up for him, no matter how unseemly or offensive their campaign becomes.

And they're willing to break several commandments to achieve their objective:

The depths to which Kavanaugh’s defenders are willing to sink was underscored when Ed Whelan, the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, sent out a tweet thread pushing a mistaken-identity alibi to explain away Ford’s allegations against Kavanaugh. Whelan, a friend of Kavanaugh who is in the thick of the strategizing on his behalf, actually named and posted photographs of one of Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Preparatory School classmates as the possible perpetrator.

Ford blew the theory away. Noting in a statement that “I knew them both,” she added: “There is zero chance that I would confuse them.”

So much for Ethics and Policy. The Republican Party was corrupt before Donald Trump barged in. The depth of its corruption made it easy for Trump to stage his hostile take over. The Kavanaugh circus underscores the fact that the party is rotten at its core. And, when the rot goes that deep, its host can't be redeemed.

Image: TeePublic

To Slash And Burn

Last week, Ontario Finance Minister Vic Fedeli announced that the previous Liberal government had saddled his province with a whopping $15 billion dollar deficit. He claimed that his predecessors had deliberately tried to "cover up" a  "crippling hidden deficit." Martin Regg Cohn writes that we've seen this movie before. Each incoming government accuses its immediate predecessor of cooking the books. But Fedeli's claims are simply not true:

To be clear, no one “hid” any numbers from anyone, least of all financial analysts. To be sure, Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk disagreed strongly with the last government’s interpretations, and issued a “qualified” opinion of their recent budgets. But everyone was working from the same set of numbers and cash flows at the time. That’s why Fedeli’s fulminations about outright deception — not just different interpretations — don’t add up. In fact, his Tories quietly adopted the Liberal numbers as their fiscal framework for their own wild promises before and during the last campaign.

In any case, a partisan political cover-up isn’t as simple as it sounds. As Fedeli now knows, finance ministers and political staff don’t have sole signing authority for budget numbers, because they flow through the public servants who put their names to financial statements.

What is really at the heart of the matter is how the government accounts for public service pensions. The Auditor General, Bonnie Lysyk, reported that "a massive surplus, in excess of roughly $11 billion in jointly-controlled public service pensions, was improperly counted as an asset (which auditors had approved ever since the Tories were last in power)."

Whether one puts $11 billion dollars in the credit or debit column makes a huge difference. And the panel Ford hired to review the books -- headed by Gordon Campbell -- has recommended that "provisionally" Lysyk's contention that those dollars should be counted as a debit is the proper interpretation of where things stand.

It all comes down to how you count. And, the way Fedeli counts will enable him to slash and burn.

Image: The Toronto Star

The Fix Is In

Michael Stern is a former prosecutor from Michigan. He admits that he found prosecuting sexual assault cases difficult:

In my early career, as a state prosecutor outside of Detroit, I dreaded handling sexual assault cases. After my first 10 cases, the ache in my stomach would come like clockwork as I sat down to open a sexual assault file for the first time. Evidence in sexual assault cases is often thin and trying to bring justice to a victim in a case with thin evidence is a prosecutor’s worst nightmare.

It all came down to he said/she said. But there was a witness to what happened between Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford -- Mark Judge:

To a prosecutor, learning of a third-party eyewitness to an alleged sexual assault is a boon. Apparently, this additional evidence has had the opposite effect on the Senate judiciary committee.

Rather than embracing testimony from Judge as a means of finding the truth about Ford’s allegation, the Republican Senate judiciary committee chairman, Charles Grassley, has scheduled a hearing for Monday and has refused to call Judge as a witness.

There is a sleight of hand that has allowed Grassley to turn a blind eye to this pivotal piece of evidence. Mark Judge sent a letter to Grassley’s committee saying he had “no memory” of the incident Ford disclosed. Judge also said he never saw Kavanaugh “act in the manner Dr Ford describes”. Other Republican senators, including Lindsey Graham, have fallen in line behind Grassley, saying that there is “no reason” to call Judge to testify because they already know what he will say – exactly what he said in his letter.

But wait. If Mark Judge’s letter to the judiciary committee is sufficient to make its Republican members accept the contents of the letter at face value, why don’t they do the same for the letter Ford sent to ranking committee member Diane Feinstein? The answer simple: Republican members of the judiciary committee want to believe Judge, not Ford.

And that's precisely the point. The fix is in. As Mitch McConnell told an audience yesterday, Kavanaugh will be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Image: BBC

No Guarantee

As Chrystia Freeland tries to hammer out a new NAFTA deal, Paul Krugman writes about Donald Trump's tariffs:

Trump’s tariffs really are a big, bad deal. Their direct economic impact will be modest, although hardly trivial. But the numbers aren’t the whole story. Trumpian trade policy has, almost casually, torn up rules America itself created more than 80 years ago — rules intended to ensure that tariffs reflected national priorities, not the power of special interests.

So far, Trump has imposed tariffs on about $300 billion worth of U.S. imports, with tariff rates set to rise as high as 25 percent. Although Trump and his officials keep claiming that this is a tax on foreigners, it’s actually a tax hike on America. And since most of the tariffs are on raw materials and other inputs into business, the policy will probably have a chilling effect on investment and innovation.

But the pure economic impact is only part of the story. The other part is the perversion of the process. There are rules about when a president may impose tariffs; Trump has obeyed the letter of these rules, barely, but made a mockery of their spirit. Blocking imports from Canada in the name of national security? Really?

As the fight over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh confirms, Trump corrupts everything he touches:

As with so many other things, Trump has basically abrogated the rule of law and replaced it with his personal whims. And this will have a couple of nasty consequences.

First, it opens the door for old-fashioned corruption. As I said, most of the tariffs are on inputs into business — and some businesses are getting special treatment. Thus, there are now substantial tariffs on imported steel, but some steel users — including the U.S. subsidiary of a sanctioned Russian company — were granted the right to import steel tariff-free. (The Russian subsidiary’s exemption was reversed after it became public knowledge, with officials claiming that it was a “clerical error.”)

Beyond that, America has thrown away its negotiating credibility. In the past, countries signing trade agreements with the United States believed that a deal was a deal. Now they know that whatever documents the U.S. may sign supposedly guaranteeing access to its market, the president will still feel free to block their exports, on specious grounds, whenever he feels like it.

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem Canada faces. Even if we sign a new NAFTA deal, there is no guarantee that Trump will live by its rules.

Image: Me.me

Ignoring His Colours

The Ontario Court of Appeal has decided that what Doug Ford did in the middle of Toronto's municipal election was unfair but not unconstitutional. Ford could have waited for the ruling. Instead, he chose to exercise the nuclear option. In the final analysis, the appellate court has underscored the first court's conclusion. The premier's judgment can't be trusted. Martin Regg Cohn writes:

If the verdict was a vindication on constitutionality, there was precious little validation of the premier’s own judgment: His unilateral move to redraw Toronto’s electoral boundaries “disrupted the campaigns that were already underway,” the judges noted. “The decision of the Legislature to change (the rules) during the campaign was unexpected and perhaps alarming.”

There is a lesson for every Ontarian in all of this:

The takeaway for Ontarians is that the premier boasts of his willingness to take away their rights on a moment’s notice, in midnight sittings, while they sleep. People who weren’t paying attention may now watch closely; those who gave his government the benefit of the doubt are now on notice; voters who assumed Ford’s cabinet would keep the premier in check should now check more closely.

Will our lawmakers learn lessons from this fiasco? The premier’s honeymoon has been eclipsed by his darkest hour. He escalated an ephemeral question of municipal seat size into an existential matter for his fledgling government, flouting the fundamental protections of the Charter on a whim.

Ford has displayed his true colours. Most Ontarians knew what they were. Sixty percent of them did not vote for him. Ignoring those colours, however, could be catastrophic.

Image: Tumblr

In A Box

Mitch McConnell is a shrewd and putrescent politician. But he did warn Donald Trump not to choose Brett Kavanaugh for his Supreme Court nominee. Walter Shapiro writes:

Mitch McConnell sent a private warning to the White House. The Senate majority leader urged the president to choose someone other than Kavanaugh because the federal appeals court judge had too long a public record dating back to his days as a top assistant to Grand Inquisitor Kenneth Starr.

It is possible that McConnell was also concerned about something personal on Kavanaugh’s record in addition to his paper trail from the George W Bush White House. But Trump, whose idea of a “listening tour” is to watch recordings of his own rallies, turned a deaf ear to McConnell’s plea. The selling point for Trump may have been Kavanaugh’s extreme belief that a president (even one who watches Fox News all day) is far too busy to be questioned by an outside investigation.

Now Trump and McConnell are in a box:

Once Republicans thought that they could politically exploit the votes of red-state Democratic senators who opposed Kavanaugh. Now vulnerable Senate Democrats like Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota) and Claire McCaskill (Missouri) have a convincing non-ideological explanation for voting against the nominee.

Not only would McConnell’s scorched-earth battle for Kavanaugh unite the 49 Senate Democrats, but it would also put beleaguered Republican incumbents like Nevada’s Dean Heller and even the fiercely ideological Ted Cruz in Texas in an uncomfortable position. Then there is Republican House member Martha McSally, who is running for the Arizona Senate seat being vacated by Jeff Flake. McSally, who once called the Access Hollywood tape “disgusting,” had to embrace Trump to survive a vicious right-wing primary challenge last month. Now she will face an even trickier decision on the campaign trail after describing the charges against Kavanaugh as a “very serious allegation.”

McConnell is boxed. The more he fights for Kavanaugh, the more he risks alienating women voters in November. Already, political analyst Nate Silver gives the Democrats a 30% chance of winning back the Senate, despite a political map tilted towards the Republicans like a rigged roulette wheel. If the Republicans go too far in defaming Ford, they risk the greatest gender-based political uprising since the suffragette movement.

But the situation is equally dispiriting for McConnell if Kavanaugh withdraws or loses on the Senate floor. Trying to jam through the next name on the Federalist Society’s list in a post-election session would also arouse united opposition from the Democrats who remember that McConnell refused to grant Merrick Garland even a hearing in the election year of 2016. Waiting for a new Senate in 2019 would mean that pro-abortion-rights Republican senators like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are more likely to be skittish about their own 2020 reelection prospects.

But that's what happens when you make a deal with the devil.

Image: Mindful Matters

Why Bother?

That's the question facing Ontarians. With Doug Ford in office, Martin Regg Cohn writes, why bother with democracy?

Why bother going through the motions of filing legal motions in court, notably his government’s appeal of the ruling that his plan was unlawful? While there is every possibility the government will win a stay of the verdict after Tuesday’s hearing before the Court of Appeal, why seek to overturn a decision if you can routinely override it by invoking the Charter of Rights’ “notwithstanding” clause?

Why bother with debates in the legislature if you can always outvote the other side? While it’s true that the opposition parties collectively won more votes than the 2.3 million Ford keeps boasting of, he won more seats — fair and square — and it’s the seat tally that counts. Why not settle another score by reducing the legislature to a human scorecard, where MPPs’ votes are tallied up but their voices tuned out?

Why bother with our parliamentary system of cabinet government in an era where the premier wields virtually total control over his obedient, obsequious ministers? Why bother with free votes if Ford makes a mockery of them — publicly daring his MPPs to vote their conscience, knowing full well they will fall into line behind him, with nary a single dissenter? Not even ex-PM Stephen Harper, a ferocious disciplinarian, cowed his Conservative caucus with such efficacy on Parliament Hill.

Why bother with the unelected media? What right have they to question the premier (notwithstanding protections in the Charter of Rights on “freedom of the press and other media of communication”)? Ford displayed his attitude by deploying paid government staffers to news conferences where, until recently, they cheered and clapped wildly to drown out annoying followup questions from reporters who dared to ask more than the maximum of five questions dictated by his handlers.

When Ford ran for office, Ontarians heard nothing about reducing the size of Toronto's city council. Ford has created chaos in Toronto. But Todd Smith -- the Government House Leader, and my local MPP -- says the bill the government is pushing through the legislature is all about restoring certainty to North America's fourth largest city.

Why bother with truth, when lies can get the job done?

Image: The Toronto Star

Now Is Not The Time

As Parliament re-opens today, the Conservatives have vowed to turn up the heat on reaching a NAFTA deal. Michael Harris writes that Justin Trudeau would do well not to be in a rush to make a deal:

The prime minister should get his staff to dig out the video of President Donald Trump at the 2017 NATO Summit in Brussels.

It would be good for him to take another look at the U.S. president forcefully shoving the prime minister of Montenegro out of his way, as Trump elbowed to the front of an event hilariously referred to as a “family photo.”

Shoving people out of the way is not necessarily the first thing you associate with Canadians. In fact, though generally fair and reasonable, Canadians pretty much can’t stand line jumpers or shove artists.

Mt. Trump shoves people around. That's his modus operandi.  We are about to discover if Justin will fight or fold:

Canada and the U.S. are at profound loggerheads on a host of big ticket issues that go to the heart of national identity.

Trudeau believes that the core of the NATO alliance is shared values amongst members, while Trump thinks it’s about NATO countries that are financial deadbeats who must pay their fair share or else.

On climate change, Trudeau at least says that governments around the world have to act in concert to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Trump believes the Paris Climate Accord is supported by a club of snowflakes who don’t seem to understand that real countries pollute their way to prosperity.

On immigration, Trudeau refers to Canada as a post-national country that doesn’t need to impose “core values” on immigrants as a precondition of qualifying to come to Canada. Trump wants to wall out Mexicans, ban Muslims and lock up the children of illegal aliens in kiddy concentration camps — often without even knowing who or where their parents are.

Trudeau wants a new deal with the U.S. to include labour standards and protection for workers. Trump has issued executive orders to make it easier to dismiss federal government workers and to weaken their unions.

Trump doesn't understand how trade works; and his ignorance makes it almost impossible to deal with him:

Trudeau is right to keep negotiating without his knees knocking. Should compromises be made on both sides, the two countries can be dance partners again. But if it’s a bad deal, even if it is a punitive one in the short term, Canada should send this message loud and clear to Trump: “You may be able to punish us, but you can’t disgrace or belittle us.”

The one thing Trudeau cannot do given under-performance on a swath of other files is to sign a bad deal with Trump and then try to put lipstick on the pig.

Nor should anyone underestimate what sort of a negotiating partner Trump actually is — and what a deal with him may end up being worth.

Justin can afford to wait:

The fact is, Trump’s presidency is in flames. He is a personal disgrace to his office and the probe of Special Counsel Robert Mueller is moving closer and closer to the White House. Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort has entered a guilty plea to charges he was facing, in addition to eight outstanding felony convictions, and is now cooperating with Mueller. The pressure is beginning to take its toll.

The missives from trump@duh.con (yes, con), always thuggish and puerile, have now become tasteless, tactless and utterly untoward.

That will not stop the Conservatives from angrily criticizing Trudeau. And the corporate lobby will organize a full court press.

But now is not the time to panic.

Image: Quotefancy

Fasten Your Seat Belts

Nouriel Roubini -- the man who forecast The Great Recession -- writes that another big downturn is coming down the tracks. He estimates that the train will arrive sometime in 2020. There are ten reasons buttressing his forecast. These are some of them:

First, the fiscal-stimulus policies that are currently pushing the annual US growth rate above its 2% potential are unsustainable. By 2020, the stimulus will run out, and a modest fiscal drag will pull growth from 3% to slightly below 2%.

Second, because the stimulus was poorly timed, the US economy is now overheating, and inflation is rising above target. The US Federal Reserve will thus continue to raise the federal funds rate from its current 2% to at least 3.5% by 2020, and that will likely push up short- and long-term interest rates as well as the US dollar.

Third, the Trump administration’s trade disputes with China, Europe, Mexico, Canada, and others will almost certainly escalate, leading to slower growth and higher inflation.

Fourth, other US policies will continue to add stagflationary pressure, prompting the Fed to raise interest rates higher still. The administration is restricting inward/outward investment and technology transfers, which will disrupt supply chains. It is restricting the immigrants who are needed to maintain growth as the US population ages. It is discouraging investments in the green economy. And it has no infrastructure policy to address supply-side bottlenecks.

Donald Trump has had a lot to do with what is going to hit us. But things are happening in other places:

Europe, too, will experience slower growth, owing to monetary-policy tightening and trade frictions. Moreover, populist policies in countries such as Italy may lead to an unsustainable debt dynamic within the eurozone. The still-unresolved “doom loop” between governments and banks holding public debt will amplify the existential problems of an incomplete monetary union with inadequate risk-sharing. Under these conditions, another global downturn could prompt Italy and other countries to exit the eurozone altogether.

The leverage in many emerging markets and some advanced economies is clearly excessive. Commercial and residential real estate is far too expensive in many parts of the world. The emerging-market correction in equities, commodities, and fixed-income holdings will continue as global storm clouds gather. And as forward-looking investors start anticipating a growth slowdown in 2020, markets will reprice risky assets by 2019.

 Most importantly, we're not prepared for what is coming:

Once the perfect storm outlined above occurs, the policy tools for addressing it will be sorely lacking. The space for fiscal stimulus is already limited by massive public debt. The possibility for more unconventional monetary policies will be limited by bloated balance sheets and the lack of headroom to cut policy rates. And financial-sector bailouts will be intolerable in countries with resurgent populist movements and near-insolvent governments.

In the US specifically, lawmakers have constrained the ability of the Fed to provide liquidity to non-bank and foreign financial institutions with dollar-denominated liabilities. And in Europe, the rise of populist parties is making it harder to pursue EU-level reforms and create the institutions necessary to combat the next financial crisis and downturn. 

Unlike in 2008, when governments had the policy tools needed to prevent a free fall, the policymakers who must confront the next downturn will have their hands tied while overall debt levels are higher than during the previous crisis. When it comes, the next crisis and recession could be even more severe and prolonged than the last.

Fasten your seat belts. If you thought the last time around was a wild ride, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Image: Goodreads

We, The People, Are In Trouble

It's about more than the not withstanding clause. As The Ford government meets in a rare Saturday session today, Martin Regg Cohn writes that this is all about our democratic norms:

Going forward, there’s a bigger question: What has the premier done to our democratic norms?

The Constitution is merely a piece of parchment. But our democracy is an unwritten code of conduct.

To understand the risk to Ontario’s democratic institutions, mind the premier’s public musings. Never mind a columnist’s calumny or lawyers’ disputatiousness.

Pay attention to Ford. Notwithstanding what the premier did with that contentious constitutional clause, it’s the why he did it that is so unforgiveable.

Ford believes that, in a democracy, the only thing that matters is elections. And, once elected, the winners can do whatever they want:

Consider his most frequent, yet fearful, refrain: “We were elected by 2.3 million people to move forward and make changes in this province.”

Is he not now premier of all 13 million Ontarians — not merely those who cast ballots from his besotted base, or voters who held their noses? Is he merely leader of Ford Nation, or premier of our province?

Defending the notwithstanding clause — often dubbed the “nuclear option” by legal experts — Ford demonstrated his newfound command of the law: It’s part of his toolbox, and “if it wasn’t there to be used, it would not be there.”

A novel argument, unless an American president ever used that logic for his own (non-constitutional) nuclear arsenal: If it’s there, surely it’s there to be used, so why not press the nuclear button to break a deadlock? Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Whatever one thinks of Ford’s invocation of the notwithstanding clause, never before used in Ontario, it is his demonization of the judiciary that is unprecedented in this country’s recent history. That not a single member of his cabinet or caucus dissented from his rhetoric is to their enduring discredit.

When all the members of a government follow a fat headed fool over a cliff, we the people are in trouble.

Image: NPR

Monumental Stupidity

Everyone is fixated on Hurricane Florence. News networks have sent reporters down to the Carolinas to ride out the storm. And they're reporting -- windblown and soaked to the skin -- every fifteen minutes. But, Michael Harris writes, they're missing the point:

It comes down to this: Warmer air holds more moisture, intensifying extreme weather events like hurricanes.

Higher sea levels from melting ice caps raise the height of storm surges.

Hotter temperatures draw moisture from vegetation, turning forests and brush into tinder. That is partially why California has been fighting wildfires this year that cover nearly two million acres in the state.

And with the thawing of the permafrost in parts of Alaska, a potentially vast amount of greenhouse gases could be released if the process of warming continues.

This kind of weather doesn't happen by accident:

Despite all the global conferences, despite the policies of government, despite a token tip of the hat to alternate energy sources like wind and solar, despite all the hype surrounding electric cars, greenhouse gas emissions are rising. According to the Global Carbon Project, after three relatively flat years, there was a two per cent rise in emission rates in 2017.

Worse, emissions are growing at exactly the point at which radical cuts are needed to escape a 2 C rise in temperature that would plunge the planet into chaos, or even its death throes. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that a 70 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions must be made by 2050 to break the earth’s rising fever.

The planet is experiencing unprecedented droughts, floods, hurricanes and wildfires scientists believe are linked to global warming.

And Earth is heading for a tipping point. We have already passed the dreaded threshold of 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. MIT professor Kerry Emanuel, who is a prominent hurricane expert, thinks that rainfall could go up by a factor of ten in new superstorms.

Justin Trudeau bought a pipeline, Doug Ford got rid of the Green Energy Program, and Donald Trump thinks global warming is a hoax. It's monumental stupidity.

We're screwed.

Image: LoHud.com

Where's Caroline?

That's Bob Hepburn's question in this morning's Toronto Star:

Mulroney, who was appointed as attorney general in June by Premier Doug Ford, is turning out to be a huge disappointment to progressives within the Conservative party.

Indeed, Mulroney, who is viewed as decent, hard-working and compassionate, is virtually missing in action as Ford tramples all over her justice portfolio, stomping on the rights of citizens and thumbing his nose at democratic practice and decency.

When The Federal Court ruled against Ford, it did not declare that Ford could not pass his legislation. It simply decreed that he couldn't do it in the middle of an election. If Ford waited until after the election, there wouldn't be a problem. The solution was simple.

But, having been told how to go about passing his legislation, Ford stomped off and invoked the not withstanding clause -- because, in Ford's estimation, the Law is an Ass. Dougie's brain only has four cylinders -- and frequently at least one misfires.

Caroline's father, was not impressed:

Even her father, former prime minister Brian Mulroney, who says he hasn’t talked to her about this issue, must be shaking his head at her support for Ford’s action.

“Everybody knows I’m not a big fan of it (the notwithstanding clause) and I never have been,” Mulroney said Tuesday during an appearance in Ottawa. “Look, to me, the backbone and the enormous strength of Canada is the independence and the magnificence of our judiciary. … That is a major thrust of our citizenship.”

Even former premier Bill Davis echoed the elder Mulroney's comments. But Caroline has remained silent:

So where was Caroline Mulroney, our attorney general? Did she speak up in cabinet? Did she let Ford know this was the wrong thing to do? Or did she quietly agree to go along with our bully premier?

Mulroney was noticeably absent from Ford’s press conference on Monday. Only hours later did she send out a short tweet backing his plan. She parroted that support Wednesday in the legislature.

In the face of profound arrogance and stupidity, Caroline toes the line.

Image: The Toronto Star