Politics Plus

It is late and I cannot sleep because of the heat and humidity, currently at 88%.  To make matters worse, my one neighbour has been in and out slamming the door each time, as well as running up and down her stairs with lead feet.  This is not the first time for her antics.  I have been awakened by her before.  Temperatures on Friday and into the weekend are supposed to hit 33 C (92 F) — oh joy! NOT! — with high humidity.  Tomorrow I have physio and then I will relax in the heat if I can.

Short Takes

CBC — Mauril Bélanger, the long-serving Liberal member of Parliament for Ottawa-Vanier, has died at age 61. Bélanger was diagnosed wIt is late and I cannot sleep because of the heatith ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, following the 2015 federal election, and his condition had deteriorated rapidly. 

Mauril Bélanger 15/06/1955 – 16/08/2016

Honourary Speaker of the House

At the moment when Bélanger should have been celebrating his eighth electoral triumph as the member of Parliament for Ottawa-Vanier, he had struggled to find his voice to make a victory speech.

And yet even in his final days, Bélanger summoned his remaining strength eight months later to attend a vote in the House of Commons where his colleagues backed his private member's bill to make the lyrics of the national anthem more representative of all Canadians. 

That vote on 15 June 2016, Bélanger's 61st birthday, resulted in the approval of Bill C – 210 which changed the second line to "in all of us command " from "in all thy sons command".  And as sick as he was, he came into the House to vote.  In the video above, if you are trying to listen to the words, the first two lines are in English, with some subsequent lines in French.  I know the French version and can tell you it does not translate directly to the English version.

I brought to you short takes about Mauril Bélanger back on 30/01 and 12/03/2016.  This is an incredible legacy for Mauril Bélanger who championed this change for years.

RobertReich.org — It looks increasingly likely that Hillary Clinton, a self-described “progressive who likes to get things done,” will have her chance starting next January. But how much that’s progressive will she actually be able to get done?

The Senate may flip to the Democrats but there’s almost no way Democrats will get the sixty votes they need to stop Republicans from filibustering everything she says she wants to do.

She’s unlikely to have a typical presidential honeymoon because she won’t be riding a wave of hope and enthusiasm that typically accompanies a new president into office. She’s already more distrusted by the public than any major candidate in recent history. On Election Day many Americans will be choosing which candidate they loathe the least.  …

Even if Hillary sincerely intends to raise taxes on rich Americans in order to pay for universal child care, affordable higher education, and infrastructure spending, the moneyed interests have the clout to stop her.

They’ll also resist any effort to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour, require employers to offer paid family leave, or push them to share their profits with employees.

The heart of American politics is now a vicious cycle in which big money has enough political influence to get laws and regulations that make big money even bigger, and prevent laws and rules that threaten its wealth and power.

Before Hillary can accomplish anything important, that vicious cycle has to be reversed. But how?  …

The pragmatist in her must know that the only way her ideas will make it in real life is if the public is organized and mobilized behind them.

Which means that once she enters the Oval Office, she’ll need the countervailing power of a progressive movement – ironically, much like the one her primary opponent championed.

I read an article recently that stated that the Green Party needs to build its base substantially in order to be viable.  Recently, TC commented (probably not for the first time) that any third party needs to start building on 15 November of an election year.  Bernie has miraculously built a substantial base, one that challenged Clinton during the primaries.  He launched a political revolution and has committed to moving forward with it.  Part of that commitment means holding Clinton's feet to the fire.  Personally, I think Bernie has a better chance of revolutionising the Democratic Party than the Greens have of becoming viable.

Raw Story — Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) revived and justified Republican criticisms against Khizr Khan on Tuesday, telling CNN host Jake Tapper that the Democratic Party “used him” irresponsibly during their party convention last month.

“Because he had a son that he lost to terror, that gives him a free ride to say what he would like against a candidate that he’s not for?” Perry asked Tapper. “That’s not proper, that’s not correct.”

Lost a son to terror??  Capt Khan was killed in Iraq during a war started by George W Bush and his cronies over oil but under the guise of weapons of mass destruction.  How is that terror?  And since when can one not comment on a political candidate who is in a race to run the nation (in the case of Drumpf, to 'ruin the nation')?  That is a prime time to gather facts, form opinions etc.  And of course, the first amendment — freedom of speech — also applies to Mr Khan.  I also take exception to Perry claiming he is for service families because he writes the letters.  But hey, did he lose a son as did Mr Khan?  Little Ricky Oops! Perry is milking this for his own glory.

Youtube — This one is strictly to make you smile.

My Universe — This is a truly magnificent sight!  My understanding is that these kayakers were near a nursing humpback and her calf.  The breaching was likely done by the rest of the pod to protect the mother and babe.  The location is near Campbell River BC, on the east coast of Vancouver Island,  little more than half way up the Island.  More over, this is a well known playground for various types of whales.

And now a little humour . . .

It is Saturday night, the end of a very hot and miserable day as far as I am concerned — 31 C (88 F) late this afternoon.  It is 0100 and 20 C (68 F) with  humidity at 78%.  Days like this just sap my energy and affect my breathing (asthma).  So I have been drinking like a fish and staying quiet.  Later Sunday, I will going to visit my mother so at least I'll have the benefit of AC in the car.  I hope everybody is surviving the heat wherever you are.

Here it is, Sunday afternoon and the temperature is back up to 30 C (86 F) 60% humidity.

Short Takes

Common Dreams — Bernie Sanders bore down on Donald Trump's economic agenda in a series of tweets on Friday morning, calling him "the poster child of failed trade policies."

The social media take-down began with Sanders posting a link to a Washington Post story from earlier this week, which revealed how a "little-noticed provision in Donald Trump's tax reform plan has the potential to deliver a large tax cut to companies in the Republican presidential nominee's vast business empire."

Click through to see a string of Bernie's tweets.  Go Bernie!  I'd also suggest reading the Washington Post story (click on "revealed") because it certainly does outline how Drumpf and other high income earners would disproportionately benefit from Drumpf's plan.  And to the point of these business entities taking those tax "savings" and reinvesting them in the business, according to Forbes, corporations are still sitting on large cash piles on their balance sheets, much of it sitting offshore.  The figures used are from 2013-14.

Raw Story — Mr. Speaker,

When Donald Trump suggested on August 9 that Hillary Clinton could only be stopped from nominating judges by “Second Amendment people,” most of the world gasped, realizing he was inciting violence against his opponent for the presidency. It was unprecedented, beneath contempt. But he didn’t apologize. Given my long experiences with Trump, I knew he would soon string together a babble of words in hopes of twisting his statement beyond recognition. And so he did, with an assist from sycophants like Sean Hannity of Fox News, who nodded like a bobblehead doll as Trump told him he didn’t mean that gun lovers should assassinate Clinton. He only meant they should be voting for him to keep her out of the White House.

That makes no sense, and here’s a crucial thing to know about Trump: He never tries to make his lies or delusions or fantasies make sense. He just spews to explain away the inexplicable.

Call for Assassination

Let’s examine the words that got him into so much trouble: “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”

Trump’s post hoc interpretation: He doesn’t know if gun lovers will vote to keep Clinton out of office. Or he hopes gun owners will vote for him. Or only Trump voters with guns could keep Clinton out of office. None of that makes sense.

Read the original statement again. Did he mean it will be a horrible day when Second Amendment people stop her from picking judges? That’s a call for assassination. Or did he mean it will be a horrible day when a President Clinton picks judges and only Second Amendment people might be able to stop it? Another call for assassination.

Trump then blamed the media for applying the rules of grammar and sentence structure to him, instead of being like his acolytes, for whom words and sentences no longer have agreed-upon meanings.

This, Mr. Speaker, is what you would be dealing with in a Trump presidency, and this flagrant disregard for the facts, for the truth, is why I am writing this, my second open letter to you. Trump must be stopped. Let the GOP lose this election. It is the only way to save the Republican Party, and the nation. Even some of his most deranged supporters recognize the danger he poses—one caller into C-SPAN last week said he knew his candidate might start a nuclear war but at least America would win.

Click through for the rest of this fairly long piece.  Author  Kurt Eichenwald goes on to lay out many of Drump's inconsistencies and lies, some of them sworn under oath in depositions or in Congressional hearings.  This is, IMO, the kind of information that needs to get broad exposure, especially with likely Drumpf supporters and voters.  Drumpf is a menace to a civilised society.

Alternet — Nearly 100% of likely voters are set on their November 8 presidential pick and the debates won't even start for another month. So, who really is the media fanfare for at this point? After all, as Noam Chomsky points out, the voting decision is really a lot simpler than the pundits have built it up to be.  …

Chomsky has consistently declared Donald Trump would be a disaster, and urges voters in swing states to cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton. 

There is another video at the end of the article which shows Chomsky giving the same advice to Clinton supporters in 2008.  As Chomsky says in 2016 "… I would vote against Trump … you hold your nose and vote Democrat … I don't think there is any other rational choice.  Abstaining from voting or say voting for a candidate you prefer, a minority candidate, just amounts to a vote for Donald Trump … "  Wise words.

Politico — Republican insiders are more convinced than Democrats that Donald Trump is so far behind Hillary Clinton that he can't win in November.

Roughly half of Republican members of The POLITICO Caucus — activists, strategists and operatives in 11 swing states — believe that Trump’s path to 270 electoral votes is basically shut off after another week in which the GOP nominee appears to have ceded ground in national and most battleground state polls.

Democrats, however, aren’t breaking out the champagne just yet. Seventy-two percent of Democratic insiders said despite Clinton’s clear advantage at this stage of the race, the presidential election isn’t effectively over.

Democrats cited the unpredictability of the 2016 campaign, along with some of Clinton’s own weaknesses, for their bridled optimism. It’s a message that fits neatly with what party leaders are saying publicly and behind closed doors: Don’t get too cocky, even with Clinton well ahead of Trump in the polls.  …

“Trump is underperforming so comprehensively across states and demographics it would take video evidence of a smiling Hillary drowning a litter of puppies while terrorists surrounded her with chants of ‘Death to America!’ But in 2016, stranger things have happened.”

Democrats are much less confident about the outcome of the presidential race than Republicans, thankfully.  This is not the time to sit back.  And it is VERY important to get out the vote.
 

My Universe —

… in my own time!

Proof that cats take a message and get back to you, later if you're lucky!

Friends! … not dinner.

Dinner on the go!