Off The Radar Screen

Michael Harris writes that The West is forgetting about Ukraine. It's off our radar screens -- a victim of our short attention spans. Consider what has happened in the United States -- the chief ally of the Ukrainians:

Nearly four months into the war, Ukraine no longer routinely leads the nightly news. On the crowded clothesline of the U.S. media, other stories have captured the public’s attention.

Americans now aim their outrage at gasoline prices, over five bucks a gallon to see the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet.

Uvalde, Texas, showed that Ukraine doesn’t have the monopoly on atrocities, as 19 fourth graders gunned down along with two teachers in a school. 

Then there is the national melodrama playing out on television screens across the country, as congressional investigators lay bare just how ruthlessly the Trump White House tried to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election. It’s sedition by any other name, and judging by the recent testimony of White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, an unhinged president.

And now the U.S. Supreme Court with Conservative judges put there by Trump has plunged the country into chaos by overturning Rowe vs. Wade, stripping millions of American women of their legal right to a safe and accessible abortion.

Yes, European leaders like Boris Johnson and Olaf Scholz occasionally make the trip to Kyiv for the obligatory photo op with him.  And yes, NATO and the G-7 still have the rhetoric right.

But the political winds are shifting. Some reports have characterized that change as “fatigue” with the war in certain quarters. Some people want the war to end, raising the question; is it Ukraine they are thinking about, or the prospect of a European winter without Russian gas and oil?

There is talk in the American military of withdrawing from Ukraine:

There have already been reports that some members of the military think it is highly unlikely that Ukraine will ever be able to recover territory lost to the Russians in the Donbas. Together with the view that the war must end, it is not hard to imagine that the day may soon come when President Zelensky will be pressured to agree to a peace that would cede Ukrainian territory to the Russian invaders.

When I taught school, ADD -- Attention Deficit Disorder -- was deemed a "Learning Disability." Students with ADD could not concentrate long enough to learn something. Now ADD is no longer an individual issue. It's a societal issue.

It seems we can no longer focus on a problem long enough to fix it.

Image: The Hill Times

War On Sex?

Mara Gay writes in The New York Times that Republicans have declared war on sex:

If we take Justice Clarence Thomas at his word — and there’s no reason not to — the right to contraception could be the next to fall. Why? Because many in this movement are animated by an insatiable desire to punish women who have sex on our own terms and enjoy it.

State laws restricting or banning abortion are an attack on American women who decide whether, when and how to have children. They are part of a movement intended to curb the hard-won freedom to pursue careers and joys outside the confines of wifehood and motherhood. Some Republicans have said just this, and it’s important that we believe them.

Consider what the Republicans are saying about women who don't stay home and who refuse to be meek:

Take J.D. Vance, the G.O.P. nominee for Senate in Ohio, who apparently thinks women like me belong at home, not writing opinions in national newspapers: “If your worldview tells you that it’s bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at The New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you’ve been had,” Mr. Vance wrote recently on Twitter.

Charlie Shepherd, an Idaho state representative, said he voted against using federal funds to increase early childhood education because “any bill that makes it easier or more convenient for mothers to come out of the home and let others raise their child, I don’t think that’s a good direction for us to be going.”

One tweeter said the quiet part out loud: “If you’re scared for your daughter’s future, maybe focus on raising her to not be a slut.”

Yesli Vega, [is] a Republican congressional candidate in Virginia who dismissed concerns about women being forced to carry pregnancies that result from rape, saying in audio recordings leaked recently that it wouldn’t surprise her if it were harder to become pregnant from rape because “it’s not something that’s happening organically” and rapists do it “quickly.”

And you thought Cotton Mather and the Plymouth Colony had disappeared? Before they're done, they'll be burning "witches."

Image: Amazon.ca

Nepotism?

A week ago, Doug Ford introduced his new cabinet. And, lo and behold, his nephew, Michael has a seat at the table. Marcus Gee writes:

Mr. Ford and his nephew, Michael Ford, insist there is nothing untoward in this. No, no, no. All perfectly fine. Though Michael has just been elected to the legislature for the first time, at the ripe age of 28, he is eminently qualified to sit at the cabinet table with his uncle and all the others. After all, he was a Toronto city councillor and a school trustee before that.

“I think he’ll do an extremely good job,” the Premier said.

Asked by reporters if this might just possibly be a case of nepotism, Michael himself said: “I completely dismiss that.” His experience representing one of the most diverse communities in one of the world’s most diverse cities made him well equipped to serve as Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism. Family ties had nothing to do with it.

Mr. Ford came to office accusing the former premier, Kathleen Wynne, of riding the gravy train and dishing out goodies to her friends. But Ford insists there's no gravy here:

This is a whopper of gargantuan proportions, designed to be so big and so bold that it will blind the audience to its essential untruth. Michael Ford owes this appointment – no, his whole political career – entirely to his family connection. He would not be in cabinet if he were a Young or a Romano. In fact, he would never have been elected to any position at all without the Ford name.

Michael is fortunate enough to be a member of Ontario’s best known political dynasty. He followed in the footsteps of his grandfather, Doug Sr., who was a Progressive Conservative MPP in the 1990s; his uncle, Rob, Toronto’s most notorious mayor; and another uncle, Doug, who was a city councillor and a candidate for mayor himself before becoming leader of the PCs.

The Fords’ home turf in North Etobicoke, a suburb in Toronto’s northwest corner, is the closest thing to a family fief in Canadian politics. A Labrador retriever named Ford could get elected there.

And, so, the story continues. . . .

Image: Nathan Denette/Canadian Press

Canada Day 2022

Another Canada Day. The celebrations this year will be on Lebreton Flats, not Parliament Hill. Anti-vaccine protester James Topp has arrived in Ottawa, where he was joined by Pierre Poilievre. Tamara Lich, who was in the capital in February, will spend the day in jail after violating her bail conditions -- for a second time. 

Everywhere these days democracy is under attack. But, despite the howling, there is much to celebrate.

Happy Canada Day.

britannica.com

An Inflection Point

 

Marjorie LeBreton writes that it's make or break for the Conservative Party of Canada:

I have been a Conservative all of my adult life, witnessing firsthand the party’s evolutions and iterations over 60 years. Throughout that time – as I went from being a secretary at party headquarters and in John Diefenbaker’s office through years as a war horse in battles that all seemed momentous at the time to my grateful service in the Senate of Canada — there was always a common bond that held Conservatives together as we worked in the best interests of the party and of the country.

And these days that bond -- such as it is -- is very fragile. The chief reason for that fragility is that the party has been wandering in the desert for a long time:

I point out the simple fact that since I first joined the staff of the party during the final year of the Diefenbaker government in the 1960s, our party has been in power only three times – in 1979, with the short-lived Clark government; from 1984-1993 with the government led by the visionary and courageous Brian Mulroney; and from 2006- 2015 under the highly intelligent and disciplined Stephen Harper. If you do the math, that’s a grand total of 19 years in the past six decades.

Now, I fervently believe that the Conservative Party has reached an existential choice. The current leadership race is the third in six years, and the message that sends to Canadians in general cannot go unheard by Conservatives in particular: We have to get it right this time. I fear that if we don’t, the great accommodation reached by Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay in the fall of 2003 could fracture, possibly beyond repair.

Clearly, this trend cannot continue if we are serious about earning the support of Canadians in future elections. Setting aside the unseemliness of the treatment of the last leader, Erin O’Toole, and what that says on a human scale, it was clear that he had lost the support of the caucus. The party moved swiftly to set in motion the process for choosing the next leader. Personally, I applauded the Leadership Election Organization Committee for resisting demands for an early vote, opting instead for a longer campaign. The wise decision to hold the vote on September 10th would allow the time required for potential leaders to enter the race, organize their campaigns, sell memberships and introduce themselves to the membership.

The question is, "What will happen in the interval?" In the United States, the Republican Party may blow itself up. The same fate could await the Conservative Party of Canada.

Image: Policy Magazine

The Government Must Protect Her

 The testimony in Washington yesterday was explosive. Ruth Marcus writes:

An out-of-control president lunging for the wheel of his limousine to have it take him to the Capitol on Jan. 6, insisting that he did not care whether his armed supporters were subjected to security screening because “they’re not here to hurt me.” An ineffectual, overwhelmed White House chief of staff who understood that “things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6” — and did nothing to prevent it. An alarmed White House counsel who warned of the president’s inaction, “Something needs to be done or people are going to die and the blood’s going to be on [his] f---ing hands.”

Never in American history has there been a portrayal of a president so unfit for office or so willing to betray his oath in a desperate bid to retain power. Never have so many people in such positions of immense authority stayed so shamefully silent for so long about the horrifying behavior they witnessed, on Jan. 6, 2021, and before.

And never has the nation witnessed the drama of a staffer so young, composed and resolute describe witnessing a constitutional disaster that she was unable to prevent — “a bad car accident that was about to happen, where you can’t stop it but you want to do something.”

Donald Trump suffers from more than a personality disorder. He's mentally ill. Yet there are so many who are willing to kiss his ring. Cassidy Hutchinson isn't one of them:

In an administration of enablers, in a crowd of sycophants unwilling even now to stand up to Donald Trump and speak publicly about his unhinged conduct, 25-year-old Cassidy Hutchinson, a former assistant to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, emerged from obscurity Tuesday, an unlikely — and lonely — truth-teller.

Hutchinson was the perfect witness to testify to the dereliction of duty she observed in the final days of the Trump White House, a Trump believer turned reluctant informant. Her GOP bona fides, including internships for House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (La.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), could not have been more impeccable, nor her demeanor — calm and sorrowful — more convincing. She was John Dean in a white blazer and diamond necklace, reciting a similarly damning cavalcade of facts.

She had literally cleaned up after the president — helping the White House valet scrub ketchup off the wall after he threw a plate in fury over his attorney general’s conclusion that voter fraud had not caused his election loss. But her breaking point arrived on Jan. 6 — and in the end, she was willing to abandon the code of complicit silence that still prevails among too many of her former colleagues.

The MAGA mob will threaten her safety. The government must protect her -- twenty-four hours a day.

Image: AP News

Not That Far Away

Glen Pearson writes that the United States appears to be headed for another civil war:

American political analyst Michael Podhorzer laid out a frightening scenario last week in a newsletter penned for activists.  He suggests that the time might have arrived when the United States is not one country but two nations that happen to share the same geography.

“When we think about the United States, we make the essential error of imagining it as a single nation, a marbled mix of Red and Blue people.  But in truth, we have never been one nation. We are more like a federated republic of two nations: Blue nation and Red nation.  This is not a metaphor; it is a geographic and historical reality.”

It’s also a bold and sobering assessment of the causes of the increasing crises piled on top of the others for our neighbours to the south.  It’s almost as if time has moved developments faster than we can make sense of them.  In just one week, the world watched as the January 6 congressional hearings competed for prominence with the Supreme Court’s validation of the rights of citizens to bear arms in public and its radical reversal of Roe vs. Wade. These weren’t merely fascinating theatre but full-scale five-alarm fires representing attacks on democracy itself.

The recent Supreme Court decision has split the country in two and will result in a new underground railroad, where women seeking abortions will be smuggled into pro-abortion states from anti-abortion states. And, unfortunately, the United States is not the only country headed for mass civil unrest:

What makes such developments so vital is that they are not unique to America – representative democracy seems in trouble everywhere.  Solitudes are rapidly growing in Britain, France, Germany, and struggling democracies in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.  On display are self-assured entities that show no willingness to compromise or pull back.  America is the point of the spear in what is turning out to be a revolution of democracy at war with itself.

Canadians cannot afford to be smug about all of this:

Earlier this year, political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon provided a dire warning in the Globe and Mail: “By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence.  By 2030, if not sooner,” he adds, “the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship.”  Then directing his thoughts to Canada, he adds:  “A terrible storm is coming from the south, and Canada is woefully unprepared.”

There is a growing sense that such observations are now more valid than ever.  While much in the Canadian political context remains relatively stable, sectors are emerging that could harden in the coming year, making political compromise impossible.  Some will find this too extreme to mention. Still, after the release of his article, Homer-Dixon noted that, in 2014, Canadians would have thought the chances of Donald Trump winning the presidency would have been nil.  Now he has become a never-ending political story.

George Orwell was prescient about what could happen to democracies:

In his In Front of Your Nose, published in 1946, George Orwell of 1984 fame somehow intuited the divisive dangers we face today.  His insights resemble the world we now see unfolding and which Canadians must resist at all costs.

“The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.  Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”

We are not that far away from the world Orwell imagined.

Image: medium.com

A Conservative Nervous Breakdown?

The Conservative Party desperately wants to form the Government of Canada. But, Michael Harris writes, it will never achieve its objective as long as it pretends to be an American knock-off:

The Conservative Party of Canada has never really been a new party that came together in a merger. It has always been a dysfunctional hybrid in which the hard right of its Western roots conducted a hostile takeover of the Progressive Conservatives. Peter MacKay’s lingering legacy.

Stephen Harper’s success was more the product of dreadful Liberal scandals and hapless, opportunistic leadership changes, than it was of his skills as a unifier.

Nothing has changed. Pierre Poilievre’s candidacy is an extension of the brand of conservatism currently on display in the United States—a fact-denying populism that has room for every conspiracy theory and grievance, where every authority and institution is painted as the enemy, and guys pissing in the Capitol and wearing Viking horns are lionized—until they’re sent to jail.

The Conservatives have a chance to remake their party:

The entry into the leadership race of progressive candidates like Jean Charest and Patrick Brown gives the Conservatives a chance to rethink the Poilievre camp’s dubious claim that the reason the party has lost three straight federal elections is that it was not Conservative enough. That’s what they said when Harper was defeated. It was not policies like the Barbaric Practices Act, it was how they were rolled out. It was a comms problem.

But they still don't understand that their problem isn't a communications problem. The problem is who they are. This leadership race is all about who they are:

The big story of this leadership race so far is the hardening divide between the two main camps vying for the top job. A source who was there recently told me that two prominent Conservative strategists almost came to blows at the Royal Ottawa Golf Club over the leadership race. A mere anecdote to be sure, but it shows the way this thing is headed, no matter who wins.

If Poilievre prevails, one branch of the CPC will be filled with embittered David Orchards, progressives who will not be able to stomach the party’s stubborn refusal to become more centrist. If Charest or Brown comes out on top, hard-core Harperites will feel betrayed, and may have no way to voice their displeasure but by rallying behind Maxime Bernier and the People’s Party. Under either outcome, the primary purpose of leadership conventions will be scuppered; unifying the party around a single person who can make its collective case to the country.

Events in the United States could have a big impact on Canada’s Conservative leadership race. That country is racing toward a political nervous breakdown. The party that stands four-square behind Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen by corrupt Democrats is paradoxically looking like a big winner in the November mid-terms. Joe Biden looks like a dead man walking every time gas prices go up.

The cause of the nervous breakdown? The surge in Republican fortunes is happening at precisely the same time as the Jan. 6 committee hearings of Congress are documenting a broad, coordinated effort by the Trump White House to retain power, although he soundly lost the 2020 election and knew it. As one judge put it, the proof of the steal put forward by Trump stooges like Rudy Giuliani and John Easton was “a coup in search of a legal theory.”

Will the Conservatives have a nervous breakdown? Stay tuned.

Image: themiduit

Ugly Truth

 

Michael Kinsley famously wrote that:

“It used to be, there was truth and there was falsehood. Now there is spin and there are gaffes. Spin is often thought to be synonymous with falsehood or lying, but more accurately it is indifference to the truth. A politician engaged in spin is saying what he or she wishes were true, and sometimes, by coincidence, it is. Meanwhile, a gaffe, it has been said, is when a politician tells the truth — or more precisely, when he or she accidentally reveals something truthful about what is going on in his or her head. A gaffe is what happens when the spin breaks down.”

Yesterday provided an example of what Kinsley was talking about. The Washington Post reports:

A Republican lawmaker called the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the nationwide right to abortion established nearly 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade a “victory for white life,” which was met with cheers at a rally held by former president Donald Trump.

“President Trump, on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday,” Rep. Mary E. Miller (R) said at the rally Saturday night in Mendon, Ill., referring to Trump’s former campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

She began clapping her hands as spectators, some clutching red “Save America” placards, also began to applaud.

In the United States, the truth keeps getting uglier and uglier.

Image: You Tube

Some Animals

The United States Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade. The decision is an earthquake to the American legal system. Ruth Marcus writes:

The Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate the constitutional right to abortion is an unfolding tragedy for American women and an indelible stain on the court itself. The harm to women is immense but can be ameliorated with efforts in the public and private spheres to safeguard access to abortion. The damage to the court cannot be undone.

This radical conservative majority — unheeding in this case even of the conservative chief justice — has proven itself unmoored from the rule of law, and therefore unworthy of the public esteem that can be its only source of enduring authority.

With the vote of five justices to overrule Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, American women have lost a right that was guaranteed them for a half-century, an unprecedented elimination of an individual freedom.

The three dissenting justices laid out what lies ahead:

 “Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens,” they wrote. “Yesterday, the Constitution guaranteed that a woman confronted with an unplanned pregnancy could (within reasonable limits) make her own decision about whether to bear a child, with all the life-transforming consequences that act involves. … But no longer. As of today, this Court holds, a State can always force a woman to give birth, prohibiting even the earliest abortions.”

With its decision yesterday, the Court established a new precedent. it's the same precedent that was at the heart of George Orwell's Animal Farm:  All Animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Image: word histories

Trump's Screwballs

Another day of hearings in Washington and the story keeps getting darker. Dana Milbank writes:

Two weeks of hearings by the select committee have made clear that the insurrection itself was but a manifestation of a much larger plot by Trump to overturn the election by any means necessary: violence, martial law, seizing voting machines, fake electors, intimidating state officials, harassing election workers, drafting meritless lawsuits — and a contemplated putsch at the Justice Department.

It's quite clear now that Trump himself is certifiable. And he surrounded himself with people who were as crazy as he is:

Though many in the Trump administration admirably (if not quite heroically) resisted his illegality, Trump was aided in his depredations by a seemingly limitless supply of crackpots willing to do his bidding. There were Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani (‘nuff said), Sidney (“The Kracken”) Powell (Trump wanted her to be appointed as an independent counsel investigating election fraud) and John Eastman, who knew his cockamamie scheme to overturn the election was illegal.

The hearing yesterday focused on one of the crazies -- Jeff Clark -- whose house was raided yesterday by the FBI, while he stood outside in his pajamas. But there were all kinds of other crazies:

Screwballs enabled Trump in Congress, as well. There was Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), whose chief of staff tried to deliver a slate of fake electors to Vice President Mike Pence. And there was Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who championed Clark for the attorney general job. According to testimony released by the committee Thursday, Perry was among those seeking presidential pardons for their actions, along with Reps. Mo Brooks (Ala.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Louie Gohmert (R-Tex), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and possibly Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Trump apparently considered blanket pardons for lawmakers and staff involved in the insurrection. At one point, Trump, frustrated that DOJ officials weren’t backing up his lies, urged them: “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

However, the loonie who directed it all was Trump:

At the center of it all was the crackpot-in-chief, whom Attorney General Bill Barr belatedly realized was “detached from reality.” He manipulated the government to back his election lies in ways that had been unimaginable. Donoghue testified Thursday about how Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows repeatedly insisted that DOJ investigate a YouTube-driven conspiracy theory claiming the CIA and MI6 worked with an Italian satellite company to erase Trump votes. Donoghue called it was “pure insanity,” “patently absurd” and “debunked.” Not satisfied with that answer, Trump’s White House secured the help of Pentagon official Kash Patel and acting defense secretary Christopher Miller, who reached out to an official in Italy to probe the bogus claim.

With so many screwballs running around, it's amazing the whole place didn't blow up. In truth, it almost did.

Image: Rolling Stone

The Crazies Have Found A Home There

Think the United States is the only place with a large loud population of crazies? Think again. We've got them, too. Alex Boutilier reports that:

Key figures of the convoy protests and related organizations were welcomed to Parliament Hill on Wednesday by a group of Conservative MPs that assured them they have ‘allies’ in Ottawa.

And while the group professed peaceful intentions for future demonstrations, they also warned they believe Canada was on a “dark path,” deeply “divided,” even showing similarities to countries about to descend into “civil war.”

The Ottawa press conference was scheduled to coincide with a conference of the “Canada Citizens Coalition,” or C3, an umbrella group for various protesters connected to February’s convoy demonstrations that paralyzed downtown Ottawa and blocked several Canada-U.S. border crossings.

The protests were purportedly sparked by an opposition to federal vaccine mandates for cross-border truckers, but quickly morphed into a festival of grievances with federal and provincial authorities.

Several Conservative MPs showed up to pledge their support:

They were greeted by multiple Conservative MPs, including leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis, Jeremy Patzer, Ryan Williams, Arnold Viersen and Dean Allison – among others.

“The reality is there’s one political party that has been represented around this table here today, there’s one political party that has stood up in the House of Commons … and spoke on the position that you guys are here with today,” said Saskatchewan MP Jeremy Patzer.

“You do have allies. You’ve had allies all along, and so I just wanted to encourage you guys going forward.”

Conservative leader Candice Bergen claimed her party had no hand in organizing the event. But Canadians should beware of her party. The crazies have found a home there.

Image: Global News

It Keeps Getting Worse

Yesterday's hearings in Washington continued to lay bare the depravity of Trump and Associates. Jennifer Rubin writes that Rusty Bowers was the most compelling witness so far:

Most informed Americans already know about Trump’s effort to cajole Georgia state election officials to “find” just enough votes to flip the state. The shocker on Tuesday was that Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Meadows were also directly involved in the efforts to overturn Arizona’s results as well.

No doubt anticipating the damage this revelation would do to his case, Trump attacked Arizona House Speaker Russell “Rusty” Bowers (R) before Tuesday’s hearing, claiming that Bowers had previously told him that the election was “rigged.” Bowers, perhaps the most compelling and effective witness the committee has questioned to date, stated clearly that Trump’s claim was false. He had not made such a statement, Bowers said, and Trump’s claim that Bowers said Trump won the state was “also false.”

Bowers, who supported Trump in the 2020 election, testified in unequivocal terms about the former president’s pressure campaign. He recalled asking Trump and Giuliani at least twice during a call after the election for proof of noncitizens or dead people voting. Bowers said he “never” received such information.

Trump and Company believe that saying -- and doing -- make it so:

In another call, Trump lawyer John Eastman called Bowers and asked him to vote to “decertify” Arizona’s electors. Bowers again refused. “I took an oath,” Bowers said he told Eastman. “For me to take that [course] would be counter to my oath.” Bowers asked, “What would you have me do?” Eastman responded that Bowers should just do it and let the courts sort it out. Bowers asked incredulously if he was supposed to “do something that’s never been done in history — the history of the United States” with no proof. “No, sir,” he said.

Saddest of all was the tale of two poll workers -- a woman and her mother -- who were accused of inputting phony votes from a thumb drive into a computer. The "thumb drive" was a package of mints.

There are lots of people who should go to jail and be disbarred. But premier among them is Donald J. Trump.

Image: The Hill

Caveat Emptor

While the House Select Committee is laying bare Donald Trump's attempted coup, some Republicans are openly advocating violence. Consider what is happening in Missouri. Eric Greitens is a Republican who is running for the Senate there. He's running a controversial ad. You can see the reaction to it in the YouTube clip at the top of this post. Paul Waldman writes:

With a shotgun in his hand and a pistol on his belt, Greitens accompanies soldiers busting into what appears to be a suburban home. Then he says to the camera: “Join the MAGA crew. Get a RINO hunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country.”

For the uninitiated, “RINO” is short for “Republican In Name Only,” a term that originally referred to Republicans who were too ideologically moderate for someone’s taste. Now it is used to refer to those who, no matter how ideologically conservative, are insufficiently worshipful of Donald Trump or question the more radical beliefs and tactics of the extreme wing of the party.

Greitens is not deploying some subtle metaphor here. You can even order a “RINO Hunting Permit” sticker from his website. If asked, I’m sure he would say he’s not literally advocating the hunting and killing of human beings. But he kind of is.

Given what happened in the American capital on January 6th, Americans -- and Canadians -- have to be clear-eyed about this. For years, the Conservative Party has been taking its cues from American Republicans.

Caveat Emptor.

Image: You Tube

Mad As Hell

When Lyndon Johnson was asked why he didn't fire J. Edgar Hoover, he famously replied that he wanted Hoover  "inside the tent pissing out and not outside the tent pissing in." Michael Harris writes that the Conservatives are masters of pissing inside the tent:

One wonders if the Conservative Party of Canada will ever hold a leadership race without turning it into a master class of mud-wrestling, hanky-panky, and mutual denunciation.

They are usually so busy slagging each other, any notion of policy is at best an after-thought. Sorry guys, but squealing “freedom” at the top of your lungs while tying up a city is not a policy.

Pierre Poilievre, the slur-king of the current leadership, now says that the Patrick Brown campaign is cheating.

Poilievre lodged a formal complaint, accusing his rival of reimbursing membership fees paid by people who agreed to join the party. Brown has made public that he sold 150,000 memberships—a number Poilievre claims is bogus. How, one wonders, would he know, one way or the other?

In addition to the reimbursement charge, it is alleged by the Poilievre camp that the Brown campaign offered “additional financial inducements.” What does that mean? Cash, a bit of bitcoin, free beer? What?

But this kind of cat fight isn't new:

It is interesting that Poilievre has already smeared Brown before, repeatedly calling him a liar. He accused the mayor of Brampton of lying about his position on sex education in Ontario, his position on the carbon tax, and in his critique of the Harper government, of which Poilievre was a key member.

Poilievre seems to have forgotten all about his own attempt in government to de-tune democracy with the risibly named Fair Elections Act, and that other legislative stinker from Harper-times, the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Practices Act. Strange way to support immigrants.

Poilievre is dissing Brown because Brown could hold the key to who wins the party leadership in September. If Brown’s membership numbers are correct, and the leadership should go to a second or third ballot, Brown could very easily deliver a victory to Jean Charest. So far, the Charest camp has been coy on its membership numbers, saying only that it has a path to victory in the fall.

That is precisely why Poilievre tried to paint an unflattering picture of Charest as a philosophical liberal who was in the pocket of the Chinese as a private consultant. He’s worried.

If Poilievre can get people talking about the moral poverty of his rivals, they may forget about his own blunders on this campaign. He extolled the virtues of bitcoin to Canadians as a hedge against inflation, without telling them he had investments in it. He later claimed that he checked with the ethics commissioner, who gave him the green light.

Poilievre also did his Donald Trump imitation in a childish outburst about firing the governor of the Bank of Canada.

Even Conservative MP Ed Fast came out against Poilievre for his comments about Tiff Macklem. And Poilievre is still missing in action on some big files—from climate change, to the rising tide of authoritarianism around the world. That hole in his resumé earned criticism of the party from former Conservative prime minister Kim Campbell. It isn’t hard to figure out who she is talking about.

The Conservatives don't win elections because they're mad as hell. Most of all, they're mad at themselves.

Image: CBC

Poilievre's Future

At the moment,  if Pierre Polievre becomes the leader of the Conservative Party his future looks clouded. Robin Sears writes:

Poilievre will likely fall victim to the torment faced by the last two leaders. There’s managing a political base whose views are in sharp contradiction to those of a vast majority of Canadians, with an inability to pivot to positions that are not repulsive to that majority. He’ll also be inheriting a party and caucus irretrievably divided on core issues.

There are three obvious flashpoints: guns, climate and COVID. Most Canadians want our epidemic of handgun violence brought under control. Poilievre will not say how he will do so, as his base is vehemently opposed to any limits on their freedom to own a dozen assault-style weapons if they so choose.

Conservatives around the world have fallen into the trap of framing the fight against climate change as a left-wing conspiracy, none more hysterically than peculiar Pierre. There is no pivot for him here, either. As fires rage this summer and floods drown dozens of communities this fall, he will be left high and dry politically.

Nor will he be able to slough off his COVID baggage, as the public health challenges continue. From his vaccine blarney, to his flirtation with insurrectionary truckers, to his sneers at the public health measures that saved thousands of Canadians from death, Poilievre will drag behind him a very heavy COVID ball and chain, one that his opponents — inside the party and out — will be sure to keep a spotlight on.

His most serious weakness in securing the confidence of Canadians, perhaps, is that he will not have the support of at least a third of his own party on day one. Whether it is Brian Mulroney, Patrick Brown, Michael Chong, Rona Ambrose or Lisa Raitt, the list is long of party elders who will express their sorrow — and anger — at the political dead end that Poilievre seems to be dragging their party into.

So Poilievre may, indeed, meet the same fate as Andrew Scheer and Erin O'Toole. But there is another possibility:

This week, polling firm Abacus found that seven out of 10 Poilievre supporters are at least open to the idea Davos elites may have a “secretive strategy to impose their vision on the world.” And more than a third are open to the statement “Bill Gates has been using microchips to track people and affect their behaviour.” Sadly, the numbers for all of Canada aren’t that much lower on these conspiracies.

So it may be easier to ride a Trumpian tidal wave of anger to political success in Canada than most of us thought. One may hope that Poilievre’s leadership opponents do a better job of exposing this would-be emperor’s nakedness, and that the Liberals and New Democrats pound him with their biggest guns relentlessly.

Poilievre may yet become the Trump of the North.

Image: Quora

Dangerous and Demented

The morons who occupied Ottawa in February are returning to the capital this summer. David Fraser reports that:

Ottawa police say they expect more protests and larger than usual crowds during Canada Day celebrations in the capital this July as groups related to the Freedom Convoy continue to plan protests. 

Several groups — most formed out of the Freedom Convoy — are planning protests in Ottawa throughout the summer, including many of the key figures and prominent streamers involved in the ongoing "Freedom Movement."

A cohort that includes many of the groups involved in protests earlier this year, as well as some that have emerged since, is co-ordinating events throughout the summer. 

Protests are expected to take place on a mass scale in the city starting June 30 when James Topp, a veteran marching across Canada in protest of the remaining vaccine mandates, plans to end his cross-country journey at the National War Memorial in downtown Ottawa. 

Topp began walking to Ottawa in February, inspired by the convoy protests and disturbed, he said, by government overreach affecting people who have chosen not to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

"As it stands right now, I have not been invited back to work as of yet," he said. "This entire march, the purpose of it was to serve as a protest. I felt it was a violation in several different ways." 

Topp's march is supported by Veterans 4 Freedom, one of the main groups responsible for organizing the Rolling Thunder protests that took place in April. 

The group's steering committee includes Tom Marazzo, who also gained prominence during the convoy protests in Ottawa, at times acting as an official spokesperson for protesters. He also ran in the Peterborough-Kawartha riding for the Ontario Party during the recent provincial election.

Ottawa police say residents have reached out with questions about the potential for protest around the national celebration on July 1, which won't take place on Parliament Hill this year.

"We will not allow for conditions that led to the unlawful protests in February to reoccur. We are applying lessons learned from the unlawful protest as well as the Rolling Thunder and associated protests to build our plan," the statement said. 

"We will continue an approach that prohibits vehicle-based protests in areas in and around places of national significance." 

The American Disease has crossed the border. The hearings over the last two weeks have laid bare just how dangerous -- and demented -- that disease is.

Image: CBC

To Accomplish Their Ends

John Eastman was at the centre of yesterday's hearing into the Trump insurrection.  Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent write:

The committee and witnesses offered a devastating case against Eastman, one that both reinforced what was already known and offered new information that made the president and his pet lawyer’s conduct look even worse — and perhaps criminal.

But as you ponder the case against Eastman, remember this: Eastman functioned as Trump’s agent throughout. Trump directly instructed his vice president, Mike Pence, to heed to Eastman’s advice, and to carry out his scheme.

And, as the hearing proceeded, two things became very clear:

First, it showed that Eastman might have fully understood that his scheme — which entailed getting Pence to delay the electoral count in Congress, giving states time to certify sham electors for Trump, based on a fictional legal theory — could lead to violence. And Eastman apparently shrugged off this possibility.

And, second, 

Eastman sought a pardon from Trump. It’s hard to say what this means: Eastman didn’t get one, and he might simply say he figured he’d be prosecuted, martyr-like, by the incoming regime. But it appears to reveal consciousness of legal vulnerability.

Trump claimed that he was going to hire "all the best people." It's abundantly clear that Trump hired people like himself -- people who had no conscience and who would employ violence to accomplish their ends.

Image: NBC News

Bigger Than Nixon

The third public hearing of the committee looking into the Trump insurrection takes place today. Liz Cheney has provided a preview of what's to come. Greg Sargent writes:

Cheney reminded us the committee has convincingly demonstrated that Trump was extensively informed he’d lost. Cheney then said Thursday’s hearing will focus on Trump’s relentless pressure on Pence to subvert the electoral count in Congress.

“President Trump had no factual basis for what he was doing, and he had been told it was illegal,” Cheney continued. Despite this, she added, Trump “plotted” with Eastman and others to overturn the election on Jan. 6, 2021.

A crucial hint there is that Trump had been told this was illegal. This suggests the committee might furnish new evidence that Trump had been warned that such pressure — which constituted an effort to push Pence into violating his official duty — could violate the law.

A source close to Cheney tells me the committee is very likely to present such evidence. When Cheney says such things, the source says, it’s “based on information the committee knows.”

Trump’s pressure on Pence to abuse his role as president of the Senate by delaying the election’s conclusion is the key that unlocks this whole scandal. Eastman concocted a bogus legal justification for Pence to secure this delay, which would allow states to revisit the voting, find it fraudulent and certify sham electors for Trump, overturning his loss.

But also critical is that Trump was told this would be illegal on Pence’s part. What’s more, Trump appears to have been told his pressure on Pence to do that might also be illegal.

We know Pence’s counsel drafted a memo forcefully informing Trump that if Pence carried out his scheme, he’d be in violation of the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which governs how Congress counts presidential electors.

Trump has never claimed, as Richard Nixon did, that he is "not a crook." But it's becoming abundantly clear that he is -- a much bigger crook than Nixon.

Image: You Tube

A Hot And Dark Future

Crawford Killian writes that COVID has broken Canadian society:

After two years of the pandemic, Canada might well be diagnosed as a case of political long COVID: We know what hit us, but we can’t seem to muster the energy to do anything about it.

Public health has disintegrated into “personal responsibility,” though public health officials continue to be paid good salaries. Doctors, nurses and other health-care workers are catching COVID-19 or just quitting, leaving hospitals and clinics understaffed. Some of us are lucky to have family doctors, even if it takes weeks to arrange a face-to-face 10-minute interview. Pierre Poilievre has reportedly signed up 300,000 new members of the Conservative Party of Canada, largely on the promise of doing away with all vaccine mandates.

The data appears to confirm his opinion:

From the start of the pandemic, writer and researcher Jon Parsons tracked our response to it — not just the numbers of cases and vaccinations, but our ethical responses.

Our responses to the pandemic fall, he argues, into three categories: passive nihilism, active nihilism and ethical subjects.

The passive nihilist “perceives the world around them in chaos and, in response, then makes the decision to turn inwards and focus on themselves.... In the context of the pandemic, the passive nihilist wants their creature comforts. They miss most of all their haircuts and going out to brunch. They want to go on holiday amid suffering and disease.”

The active nihilist “sees the world in chaos and, in response, decides to make that world more chaotic still.... In the context of the pandemic, the active nihilist is the person who fights against any reasonable attempts to contain the virus. They are against lockdowns, against masks, against vaccines, and against anyone who tries to keep others safe.”

The third response is from what Parsons calls the “ethical subjects,” people who realize their inability to fix things but who try anyway. “In the context of the pandemic, they understand that it is an unfair situation, and they know it is not in their power to make the virus go away. Still, they commit to doing whatever they can to minimize the suffering of others.... The ethical subject makes a commitment to social solidarity even while recognizing there is some absurdity to it, in the sense that they know their actions will make little difference in the face of such tragedy. They cannot help but try.”

Most of us are nihilists, driven purely by self-interest:

North Americans have been encouraged for over 40 years to think that it’s “me against the world.” Margaret Thatcher, while still British prime minister in 1987, summed it up very well: “Who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.”

Our inability to react collectively to COVID suggests that, as we face climate change, our future is hot and dark.

Image: The Tyee