Friday, August 31, 2018

POTENTIAL WITHDRAWAL OF USA FROM WTO

  President Donald Trump said he would pull out of the World Trade Organization if it doesn’t treat the U.S. better, targeting a cornerstone of the international trading system.
  “If they don’t shape up, I would withdraw from the WTO,” Trump said Thursday in an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg News. Trump said the agreement establishing the body “was the single worst trade deal ever made.”
  A U.S. withdrawal from the WTO potentially would be far more significant for the global economy than even Trump’s growing trade war with China, undermining the post-World War II system that the U.S. helped build.

BLASTING MACRON THE HYPOCRITE

  Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has blasted French President Emmanuel Macron, calling him a “hypocrite” for turning away migrants while lecturing other nations about open borders.
  “We do not take lessons from a hypocrite,” Salvini said Thursday in response a statement by Macron decrying nationalists who “preach hate.”
  On Tuesday, Mr. Salvini met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Milan after which the two leaders vowed to demolish the current European Union (EU) globalist structure and replace it with a model that respects the national sovereignty of EU countries.

$1B A YEAR SPENT PROMOTING GREEN LIES IN USA

  U.S. foundations are now spending over $1 billion a year to advance the global warming agenda – an amount several orders of magnitude bigger than the sums spent promoting climate change skepticism.
   The eyewatering sum is revealed in an investigation, conducted by Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, into some of secret forces and nefarious methods pushing the climate change agenda in the U.S. and beyond.
   What the report clearly demonstrates is that – regardless of President Trump’s attempts to introduce an element of scientific rigor and economic practicality to America’s climate and energy policies – a powerful, richly funded and determined Green Blob is working to undermine the Administration’s efforts at every turn.

SOUTH AFRICA'S LAND SEIZURE PLANS: SEE ZIMBABWE

Last week’s controversy over President Donald Trump's call for his State Department to examine South Africa's coming land reform policy -- in which white farmers purportedly are to have their farmlands seized -- recalled a similar tragic situation in neighboring Zimbabwe in the early 2000s.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson apparently started the ball rolling when he reported on South Africa’s plan to begin expropriating white farmers’ land. Carlson drew comparisons with a similar program in Zimbabwe 20 years ago that led to economic collapse and hunger there.

SHIP OF FOOLS IN THE ARCTIC

An 11 meter sailboat was crushed and sunk by arctic ice in the Bellot strait on 8/29/2018. The vessel was attempting the Northwest Passage. The captain may have believed the propaganda about an ice free arctic in 2018.

Thursday, August 30, 2018

KILLING CANADIAN PIPELINES



Effectively what the Federal Court of Appeal did on Thursday was kill the Trans Mountain pipeline and all future pipelines.

Oh, it could say it hasn’t raised an impossible bar to pipeline construction. And it might argue it hasn’t handed the most militant First Nations and environmentalists a veto over future projects. But that is effectively what the justices did.

The only real hope now is that the federal government (which by the end of Thursday should be the proud owners of Trans Mountain) will appeal this decision to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court will somehow decide next year or in 2020 (or 2021), that the Federal Court was wrong.

VATICAN DIPLOMAT WHO TOOK ON THE POPE



The letter, published Sunday, has challenged Francis’ papacy and shaken the Roman Catholic Church to its core. The pope has said he won’t dignify it with a response, yet the allegations have touched off an ideological civil war, with the usually shadowy Vatican backstabbing giving way to open combat.

The letter exposed deep ideological clashes, with conservatives taking up arms against Francis’ inclusive vision of a church that is less focused on divisive issues like abortion and homosexuality. But Viganò — who himself has been accused of hindering a sexual misconduct investigation in Minnesota — also seems to be settling old scores.

As the papal ambassador, or nuncio, in the United States, Viganò sided with conservative culture warriors and used his role in naming new bishops to put staunch conservatives in San Francisco, Denver and Baltimore. But he found himself iced out after the election of Pope Francis.

OUTRAGE OF ONTARIO'S TEACHERS

  Ontario teachers’ unions and the provincial government are at war, again. That’s something we have seen far too often over the last 20-plus years.
  This time the fight is ostensibly over the elementary school sex-education curriculum. Teachers’ union leaders are outraged over the temporary reversion to a curriculum last taught in 2014. They are doubly outraged by Premier Doug Ford’s announcement that parents can complain by phone to the Ontario College of Teachers if teachers don’t follow that curriculum.
  The premise of the teachers’ outrage is that it is unfair and unreasonable for the person ultimately in charge of the provincial education system to tell them what to do, as if they were mere employees.

ON STUDENTS FAILING PROVINCIAL MATH STANDARDS

   The province’s youngest learners are increasingly failing to achieve provincial standards in math.
   The latest EQAO results show the continuation of a five-year slide in math results among elementary students.
  Only 61% of Grade 3 students and 49% of Grade 6 students met the provincial standard — a “B” grade — in 2017-18 EQAO testing.
  The results were better for Grade 9 students in the academic stream who scored 84% on their math testing but the Grade 9 applied stream had a much more disappointing 47% result, even though EQAO officials have said that there is no reason why students in either stream should not see equal success.

BC SUING DRUG COMPANIES OVER OPIOIDS

British Columbia launched a proposed class-action lawsuit Wednesday against dozens of pharmaceutical companies, alleging they falsely marketed opioids as less addictive than other pain drugs and helped trigger an overdose crisis that has killed thousands.
The lawsuit is the first of its kind in Canada and names OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma Inc. and other major drug manufacturers. It also targets pharmacies, including Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. and its owner Loblaw Companies Ltd., claiming they should have known the quantities of opioids they were distributing exceeded any legitimate market.

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

REMOVING CARBON TAX FROM NG BILLS IN ONTARIO

Residents and businesses in Ontario will see their natural gas bill drop by Oct. 1 with the repeal of the provincial carbon tax, Premier Doug Ford announced on Wednesday.
The government said removing the carbon tax means a reduction of approximately 3.3 cents per cubic metre on the price of natural gas, which will save consumers about $80 a year and businesses up to $285 a year

16 YEAR OLD CHARGED IN TOURIST SHOOTING

Alberta RCMP have arrested and charged a 16-year-old boy in connection with the shooting of a German tourist on a rural highway west of Calgary earlier this month.
The youth, a resident of the Stoney Nakoda First Nation, was arrested Friday without incident, police confirmed Tuesday.
The teen has been charged with 14 criminal offences, including attempted murder, discharging a firearm with intent, and possession of a prohibited firearm.

GOOGLE CEO DECLINES TO TESTIFY

  Google’s Sundar Pichai is facing bipartisan criticism for refusing to testify at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing next week, but the panel’s chairman signaled he’s unlikely to issue a subpoena to force the chief executive officer to appear.
   Twitter Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook Inc. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg are said to be planning to testify at the Sept. 5 Senate committee hearing on social media and Russian meddling.
  Alphabet Inc.’s Google previously announced it would send Kent Walker, its senior vice president for global affairs. The company said Tuesday that Walker, who’s overseeing its efforts to tackle foreign interference, will be in Washington and available to meet with lawmakers on the day of the hearing.
  But Burr -- who had asked Pichai to testify -- had said Thursday, Aug. 23, that Walker wasn’t sufficiently high up in the company, according to a panel spokeswoman.

BC TEACHER SEEKS RELIGIOUS EXEMPTION FROM UNION


Vancouver Sun:  A British Columbia teacher, who applied for a religious exemption from his union, saying membership and paying dues is “irreconcilable with my faith,” has lost an application for appeal of a labour relations board decision, where he argued trade unions are “a major part of the grand Marxist agenda” and that “Marxism is diametrically opposed to Christianity.”

Robert Alan Bogunovic applied for a religious exemption from his union, hoping instead to give his dues to a charity. While he had been a member since 1998, he became particularly interested in the 2016 election in the United States, and had a “red pill” moment — a political awakening, usually an anti-leftist one — after watching YouTube bloggers, reading the work of writers such as Jordan Peterson and Mark Steyn and following those who warned about the menace of trade unions in religious terms.

“My present conviction is that Marxism is a major player in a spiritual war that has been fought for centuries, a war that pits truth against lies, good against evil, State power against freedom, families, and the Church, and that trade unions are on the side of those seeking to destroy that which Christians hold to be most vital (freedom, families, and the Church),” said Bogunovic in his application to leave the union.

LIBERALS' FARCICAL INFRASTRUCTURE BANK

   It’s just lending out government money” says Caron. “That’s not what the Infrastructure Bank is supposed to be about.”
  Indeed, the Bank’s purpose is to receive private equity and invest it in Canadian infrastructure, not loan government money. And with time ticking away, repackaging old deals as new ones suggests things are not working out.
   “I have not heard of a single private firm that has decided to invest in the Infrastructure Bank,” says Caron.

GOV'T GRANTS TO HIRE IMMIGRANTS BEFORE CANADIANS

Lilley, Toronto Sun: Imagine a government that says we should use taxpayers dollars to ensure small businesses hire immigrants over Canadian citizens.

Actually, in Justin Trudeau’s Canada you don’t have to imagine that.

A government report, one originating from the prime minister’s own department, is calling for government grants to be used as incentives to small businesses to hire immigrants.

RE NAFTA, CANADA HAS NO LEVERAGE

   Ivison, NP:  If the mood prevailing in the Canadian camp in Washington could be summed up in a sentence, it would be: if you’re not confused, you’re misinformed.
   The sense was that a trilateral agreement was closer than it has ever been but that everything could yet unravel. Those closest to the action professed they couldn’t say they were optimistic or pessimistic. As Verheul met with his U.S. counterpart to read the U.S.-Mexico “preliminary agreement in principle”, and Freeland rushed from the airport to meet U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the feeling was that it was 50:50 odds on whether Canada could be added to the “United States-Mexico Trade Agreement”, or whether Donald Trump might follow through with his threat to impose punishing tariffs on Canadian cars.
   Confusion and misinformation reigned in Washington, as Freeland headed off to meet Lighthizer late Tuesday. But this shabby drama is reaching its denouement and in the next day or so, Canada will discover the extent of the shaft.

BILL BLAIR, THE MINISTER OF LOOKING BUSY

 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has assigned sweeping responsibilities to Bill Blair, the new minister in charge of border security and organized crime, tasking him with leading the file on irregular migration and examining whether Canada should ban handguns and assault weapons.
In a freshly minted mandate letter made public Tuesday, the prime minister asks Blair to lead conversations with the United States on the Safe Third Country Agreement, working closely with Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen.
Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel called Blair's appointment "an exercise in public relations, not a plan of action."
"The letter contains no formal commitment to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement in such a way that would close the loophole that facilitates the Roxham Road crossing in Quebec. This is because Justin Trudeau has no intention of doing so."

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

DIPLOMAT OF THE YEAR, FREELAND, INSULTS USA

   President Donald Trump was infuriated by a major foreign policy speech delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland in Washington D.C. in June of this year, sources tell Global News.
   Minister Freeland travelled to the U.S. capital to receive the prestigious Diplomat of the Year Award from Foreign Policy Magazine.
   In her acceptance speech, Freeland directly addressed Americans in the room, raising concerns about the direction the United States has been taking under the Trump administration. She criticized America’s approach to international relations including trade, tariffs, and key alliances like NATO.

VET'S AFFAIRS PAYS FOR MURDERER'S TREATMENT

   The decision by Veterans Affairs Canada to pay for the treatment for a Halifax man who never served in the military and got PTSD after murdering off-duty police officer Catherine Campbell is upsetting an advocate for veterans as well as a member of Campbell's family.
   Christopher Garnier, 30, is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder in the strangling of Campbell, 36, whose body was found in September 2015 near Macdonald Bridge in Halifax.
  At trial, an expert for the defence testified Garnier developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of the killing. At a sentencing hearing earlier this month, a Crown prosecutor told the court that Garnier's treatment is being paid for by Veterans Affairs because his father, Vince Garnier, is a veteran.

ENDING BIRTH TOURISM IN CANADA

   At their weekend convention in Halifax, the Conservative Party of Canada approved a resolution to “enact legislation which will fully eliminate birthright citizenship in Canada unless one of the parents of the child born in Canada is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada.” In a subsequent statement, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said the measure was designed to “end birth tourism.”
   Most of the world does not grant automatic birth citizenship.
   If a French woman goes into labour while changing planes at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, the child automatically receives lifetime Canadian citizenship. Canada extends unconditional citizenship to anyone born within its borders under a legal principle known in Latin as “jus soli” (law of the soil). Conversely, if a Canadian woman goes into labour while changing planes at Paris-Charles De Gaulle airport, the child gets nothing except perhaps a decorative French birth certificate. This is generally the law across all of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania: A child’s nationality is determined based on the citizenship or residency of its parents rather than the flag flying over the maternity ward at the time. There are exceptions. Germany introduced qualifications into its citizenship law after whole Berlin neighbourhoods started to fill with German-born Turks unable to obtain citizenship. And, in Australia, a child born to two stateless parents may be eligible for a special form of jus soli.

JUDGE: ENDING REBATE PROGRAM HARMED TESLA

    An Ontario court has ruled in favour of the Canadian arm of Tesla Inc. in its petition that it had been treated unfairly in the provincial government’s cancellation of an electric vehicle rebate program.
   Ontario Superior Court judge Frederick L. Myers said the decision to exclude Tesla from a grace period for the program’s wind-down was arbitrary and had singled out Tesla for harm.
   Tesla launched the legal petition after Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government ended the rebate program on July 11, but said it would extend the rebates to vehicles already sold through dealerships if they were delivered and registered within 60 days.

DEMANDING REPARATIONS FROM CATHOLIC CHURCH

   An Irish government Cabinet minister has told Pope Francis that the Catholic Church “should contribute substantially” to funding reparations for survivors of a former church-run orphanage where a mass grave of children’s remains was discovered.
    Investigators later found a mass grave containing remains of babies and young children in an underground sewage structure on the grounds of the home, which was run by an order of Catholic nuns and closed in 1961. DNA analysis of some remains last year showed the dead ranged from 35 weeks to 3-years-old and most were buried in the 1950s.
   “It is my strong conviction that given the role of the church in this shameful chapter of recent Irish history it must play a practical role in addressing the hurt and damage,” Zappone wrote. “I believe that the church should contribute substantially to the cost of whatever option is decided by the government….Nothing less will demonstrate remorse.”

Monday, August 27, 2018

BALANCING ONTARIO'S BUDGET

   The study outlines two scenarios that will create the fiscal room for reforms to make the province competitive, while balancing Ontario’s budget by 2020/21, years earlier than the 2024/25 timeline set by the previous government. 
      - Maintain 2017/18 spending levels: Maintaining spending at 2017/18 levels would achieve balance by 2020/21 and also free up an additional $15 billion in fiscal room, which could be used to reduce taxes. 
      -Reduce program spending: A five per cent reduction in spending from 2017/18 levels would achieve balance by 2020/21 and free up $21 billion in fiscal room.
  “Ontario’s fiscal challenges are real, but they are not intractable. With a commitment to spending discipline, the new government has every opportunity to right the ship,” said study co-author Livio Di Matteo, Fraser Institute senior fellow and economics professor at Thunder Bay’s Lakehead University. “If the government gets this right, it opens the door for other important reforms that can boost the economy, enhance competitiveness and ultimately improve the economic opportunities and quality of life for Ontarians.”

VASSALAGE, SATRAPY, COLONY STATUS FOR UK

   Former foreign secretary and possible Prime-Minister-in-waiting Boris Johnson has launched a blistering attack on the European Union and its merciless treatment of the Greek people, drawing a clear comparison with the punitive approach the bloc is taking to Brexit negotiations.
   Noting the “example” the EU sought to set for others with Greece, which was subjected to a nine-year enforced bailout programme at the hands of Germany and the European Central Bank, Boris Johnson took to the Daily Telegraph to warn against Prime Minister Theresa May’s Chequers plan for a ‘Soft Brexit’.
   Insisting that Britain should “Chuck Chequers” — a now-common refrain among Brexiteers — the former two-time Mayor of London said the EU had acted selfishly to preserve “the balance sheets of EU banks” ahead of the welfare of ordinary people, and that it would do the same with Brexit.

POPE: "I WON'T SAY A WORD ABOUT THIS."

   Pope Francis deflected questions from reporters about his alleged lifting of sanctions imposed on Cardinal Theodore McCarrick for sexual abuse, telling reporters Sunday to read the accusations and make their own assessment of their credibility.
  On the papal plane returning from Ireland Sunday night, a journalist asked the pope point blank whether allegations were true that the papal nuncio to the United States had explicitly informed him in 2013 of sexual abuse perpetrated by Cardinal McCarrick and subsequent sanctions imposed on him by Pope Benedict XVI, including restrictions on his travel and appearances in public.
   “I read that statement this morning,” he said, in reference to an 11-page affidavit by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal nuncio to the United States, which claimed that the pope knew about McCarrick’s misdeeds and yet reinstated him to a position of influence within the Vatican.
   “I read it and sincerely I must tell you this, you and all of you who are interested, read the statement carefully and come to your own conclusion. I won’t say a word about this,” he said.


SUING HORWATH OVER DIRTY POLITICS

   Toronto Sun:  A former Ontario PC candidate who says he was falsely accused of sending a threatening email just days before the provincial election has launched a $2.45 million libel and defamation lawsuit against Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, his former employer Toronto Police Services and others, according to his statement of claim.
   Roshan Nallaratnam’s bombshell lawsuit accuses Horwath, the NDP and others of engaging in a dirty tricks, “politically-motivated hit job” to turn voters against him in the hotly-contested Scarborough-Guildwood riding.
   Just three days before the June 7 vote, the NDP issued a release accusing Nallaratnam, who was then a police officer, of sending an “ominous” email threat in response to “concerns from a voter about why he was avoiding debates.”


Sunday, August 26, 2018

TRUDEAU THANKS MUSLIMS FOR SHAPING CANADA

Watch: Canadian PM says it’s time for Canadians to recognize & thank Muslims for everything they do “to shape Canada”

CRUELTY OF CATHOLIC CHURCH IN IRELAND

   Knock in the west of Ireland is just a short distance from another, darker landmark – a mass grave containing the remains of up to 800 babies and children at a former home for unmarried mothers in Tuam, Co Galway.
   As the Pope visits the shrine, crowds of protesters will tell him they want a forensic exhumation of the grisly cemetery nearby and the identification of the tiny remains. The Roman Catholic Church, they will tell its leader, must face the truth in full.
   The long-running scandal of the Church’s cruelty to more than 30,000 ‘fallen’ women has shaken the country.

FREEING A MUSLIM TERRORIST CELL

   Siraj Ibn Wahhaj Jr. of Clayton County, Ga., was arrested after authorities found 11 hungry, filthy children living in squalid conditions in Taos County in a remote part of New Mexico near the Colorado state line. Wahhaj, who has been charged with felony child abuse, had reportedly been training the children to commit school shootings. The remains of a three-year-old disabled boy, since identified as Wahhaj’s son, were discovered on the property which was filled with weapons. Five defendants were arrested but then granted bail, over the objections of prosecutors.
    The state’s request to deny bail to the five terrorists who ought never to see the light of day again was shot down by Sarah C. Backus, a Democrat who is a judge in the Eighth Judicial District of New Mexico. Citing a voter-approved state law she claimed left her no choice but to order the release of the jihadist quintet, Backus set bail at a mere $20,000 per defendant with no up-front deposit, along with a requirement that they be placed under house arrest and wear an electronic monitoring device. They face a financial penalty if they violate the terms of their bail.
   Evidence that a child died at the terrorist training compound and that 11 children were abused there by Muslim fanatics apparently had no effect on Backus who rejected claim after claim presented by prosecutors.
  "All this information is troubling and unusual but it is not clear and convincing evidence of dangerousness," the judge determined.

TURNABOUT IS FAIR PLAY FOR VEGANS, OUI?



The French town of Calais has decided to cancel a vegan festival to avoid the risk of trouble.    An alliance of hunters and farmers has threatened to take action against vegans bent on turning the largely carnivorous French off meat.
  The move was the latest episode in an ongoing battle between vegan militants and butchers and other providers of meat in the north of France.
  So far it has been radical non-meat eaters who have been on the offensive, vandalizing several butchers’ shops in the region and elsewhere in recent months, prompting the French federation of butchers to issue a plea for police protection.

CLAIMING POPE FRANCIS COMPLICIT IN COVER-UP

In an extraordinary 11-page written testament, a former apostolic nuncio to the United States has accused several senior prelates of complicity in covering up Archbishop Theodore McCarrick’s allegations of sexual abuse, and has claimed that Pope Francis knew about sanctions imposed on then-Cardinal McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI but chose to repeal them.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 77, who served as apostolic nuncio in Washington D.C. from 2011 to 2016, said that in the late 2000s, Benedict had “imposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to those now imposed on him by Pope Francis” and that Viganò personally told Pope Francis about those sanctions in 2013.
Archbishop Viganò said in his written statement, simultaneously released to the Register and other media, (see full text below) that Pope Francis “continued to cover” for McCarrick and not only did he “not take into account the sanctions that Pope Benedict had imposed on him” but also made McCarrick “his trusted counselor.”  Viganò said that the former archbishop of Washington advised the Pope to appoint a number of bishops in the United States, including Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago and Joseph Tobin of Newark. “He [Pope Francis] knew from at least June 23, 2013 that McCarrick was a serial predator,” Archbishop Viganò stated, but although “he knew that he was a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end.”
“It was only when he was forced by the report of the abuse of a minor, again on the basis of media attention, that he took action [regarding McCarrick] to save his image in the media,” wrote Viganò. 

HURRICANE LANE HAMMERING HAWAII

   Hurricane Lane barreled toward Hawaii on Friday, dumping torrential rains that inundated the Big Island’s main city as people elsewhere stocked up on supplies and piled sandbags to shield oceanfront businesses against the increasingly violent surf.
   The city of Hilo, population 43,000, was flooded with waist-high water. The National Guard and firefighters rescued six people and a dog from a flooded home. Five tourists from California were rescued from another home.
  “There’s so much rain, the drainage is all saturated,” said Hawaii County Managing Director Wil Okabe. “We’re just letting nature take its course, getting water down to the ocean and responding to any rescues.”

ANGELA MERKEL MUST BE SO PROUD

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has declared Germany “is a nation of immigrants and will remain so”, asserting: “There are no half or whole Germans, no biological or ‘new’ Germans”.

Saturday, August 25, 2018

ENGLAND'S BUCK-TOOTHED TREE KILLERS

    How England's first wild beaver colony has transformed a Devon valley with an intricate drought-proof network of 100ft long dams 13 years after they 'escaped' and started breeding.
   Across almost 100 acres of the Coombeshead Valley, a industrious group of two dozen or more animals have engineered a huge network of 14 pools and dams 13 years after they first 'escaped'.       Wait until the word "transformed" becomes "ruined".
  

RAISE THE ARROW

The “Raise the Arrow” team announced Monday that the first historic relic of the Avro Arrow free-flight program has been recovered. It was delivered back to land at CFB Trenton on August 13, 2018 after resting on the bed of Lake Ontario for over 64 years, the group noted on its Facebook page.

HOME SALE PRICES ONLINE

   Ottawa Citizen:  Canadians might soon be able to find out how much the house down the street sold for, without getting up from their couch.
   The Supreme Court of Canada has announced it will not hear an appeal from the Toronto Real Estate Board, which has been arguing for years that its housing sales prices, broker commissions and pending sales do not need to be publicly disclosed.
   Some say that decision, announced Thursday, will send tidal waves not just through Toronto, but the entire country’s real-estate industry, and could empower home buyers and sellers alike, by putting relevant pricing information at their fingertips.

ALLIES TURNING AGAINST TRUMP

   WASHINGTON — On one of the worst days of his presidency, Donald Trump was chatting aboard Air Force One when the conversation took a detour into gallows humour.
   Trump was returning from a rally in West Virginia just hours after two former members of his inner circle were found or pleaded guilty, when one passenger quipped that a news story would surely soon be breaking about the president fuming onboard. Everyone laughed, including the president.
   Despite the momentary levity, though, Trump is increasingly frustrated and isolated as the investigations that have long dogged his White House plunge into the personal territory he once declared off-limits.

ALARMING TREND OF YOUNG AMERICANS ON WELFARE

   New analysis from CNS News finds that the majority of Americans under 18 live in households that take "means-tested assistance" from the US government.
   The study, based on the most recently available data from the Census Bureau, leads with the question: Will they be called The Welfare Generation?
   The data presented by CNS editor Terrence Jeffrey shockingly reveals that in 2016 "there were approximately 73,586,000 people under 18 in the United States, and 38,365,000 of them — or 52.1 percent — resided in households in which one or more persons received benefits from a means-tested government program."

CANADA'S IMMIGRATION SYSTEM HAS COLLAPSED

   NP:  “Without changes to improve efficiency and productivity of the asylum process, wait times and backlogs will only continue to grow,” Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen writes in the Aug. 14 letter, addressed to the Canadian Bar Association. “This situation is not sustainable, nor is it fair to the people who need Canada’s protection.”
  Sergio Karas, an immigration lawyer and analyst, called Hussen’s letter “an admission of failure … by the Liberal government,” and said the existing system wasn’t designed to accommodate the current volume of asylum claims.
  I honestly do not understand how it is that the federal government can look the people of Canada in the eye and say that the system works,” he said. “Because the system has collapsed.”

Friday, August 24, 2018

BURNABY'S TRANS MOUNTAIN OBJECTION DISMISSED

  The leader of an Indigenous group that hopes to someday own a stake in the Trans Mountain pipeline is encouraged that the Supreme Court of Canada's rejection of an appeal by the anti-project City of Burnaby inches the expansion closer to construction.
   "I have the feeling, at the end of the day, it's going to clear all the hurdles that remain of a legal nature and so I'm happy at this ruling," said Cheam First Nation Chief Ernie Crey.
   Canada's top court announced Thursday it has dismissed an application from the City of Burnaby in British Columbia, which had asked it last spring to consider overturning a lower court decision that denied the port city leave to appeal a ruling by the National Energy Board.

COMEY & MUELLER LEVERAGING GOV'T FOR SELF-ENRICHMENT

  Schweizer concluded, “What Seamus shows is this pattern where, when Mueller is in the private sector and Comey is in government, there seem to be contracts and resources that flow in that direction, as well. It’s kind of a tag team arrangement that these two have. It speaks to the financial underbelly that exists even at the Department of Justice. … There are lots of ways in which these officials enrich themselves.”

FORK OVER THE CLIMATE CHANGE CASH


  Are you all feeling properly guilty? Clearly the only solution to keep the leaders of poor nations smiling is to immediately surrender all control over our promised guilty rich nation climate cash into their care.

AWAITING SESSIONS' INVESTIGATIONS OF OTHER SIDE



  The to-ing and fro-ing continues between President Trump and his attorney general. In a double-tweet storm response this morning to AG Sessions' strong response to Trump's barrage of abuse yesterday, the President pressed his AG to "look into all of the corruption on the 'other' side," jabbing at him by saying, "Come on Jeff, you can do it, the country is waiting!"

PENALIZING OFFICERS GIVING LIFE-SAVING MEASURES

   London Free Press:  The London investigation – the first involving a local officer – comes a day after the union representing OPP employees urged the SIU to stop investigating officers who administer naloxone that doesn’t save the drug user, saying police are being penalized for doing what any first responder would do.
   Ontario Provincial Police Association president Rob Jamieson, whose organization represents 10,000 uniform and civilian OPP members, wants the SIU to follow the lead of British Columbia, where the Independent Investigations Office exempts officers whose life-saving measures are unsuccessful.
   But the SIU says it’s mandated under legislation to investigate all incidents of serious injury or death involving police officers, including instances where naloxone or other life-saving measures were administered.

ONTARIO'S ATTENTION-SEEKING, SULKING TEACHERS

   It’s the result of union president Sam Hammond’s fiery messages to teachers this month, encouraging them to defy Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government, by teaching the controversial sex-ed curriculum developed by the previous Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne.
All teachers have to do to avoid any problems on this issue is to teach the curriculum the province has asked them to teach.
  Surely, that’s not too much to ask of professionals.
   This latest attempt by ETFO to dictate to the province what it should be teaching, and how and when it should be taught, is just another attempted power grab.

BERNIER PULLS THE PIN ON CONSERVATIVE PARTY

    Toronto Sun: Maxime Bernier declared open war on his own party Thursday as the outspoken and controversial Conservative MP abruptly quit the Tory caucus, announced plans for a new political movement and derided his former leader and colleagues as “intellectually and morally corrupt.”
   With Conservative caucus members gathering in Halifax for a policy convention that was expected to bring the Bernier boil to a head, the Beauce MP instead stayed behind, summoning journalists to a snap news conference that proved breathtaking in its defiance.
   “I am no longer a Conservative,” he declared after reading a scathing diatribe against his party and its leader, Andrew Scheer — the Saskatchewan MP who narrowly edged Bernier out of the leadership job last year in a loss some have suggested he never got over.

Thursday, August 23, 2018

UBC RESEARCHERS MAKE DONATED BLOOD TYPE-O

  Vancouver Sun:  Researchers at the University of B.C. think they may have found a way to transform a very common type of human blood — type-A — in the universally usable type-O negative.
  Because of type-O negative’s universality, it is useful in emergency surgery, for instance, when there isn’t time to test for a patient’s blood type.
  In laboratory tests, the UBC researchers say a “powerful” group of enzymes found in gut bacteria is able to transform type-A blood — both positive and negative — into type-O negative by removing antigens from red blood cells.

LIBERALS CHERRY-PICKING THEIR STATISTICS

   Hence the recent message from Trudeau and other cabinet ministers that since being elected in 2015, the Liberal government has created 60 per cent more jobs in Canada than the Conservatives did during the same time period.
   But for the sake of argument, the Liberals should be comparing their first 33 months not with the end of the Harper era, but the beginning — a period that saw 635,400 new jobs between January 2006 and October 2008.
   "If you're going to argue that the arrival of a Liberal government leads to increased employment, you might as well argue that the arrival of a Conservative government has an even stronger effect on employment," Gordon said.

TRANSGENDER WOMAN SUES SPA

  NP:  The Facebook exchange is now the subject of a complaint filed with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. The transgender woman — who according to an order of the tribunal can only be identified by the initials “JY” — alleges she was discriminated against on the basis of gender identity or expression and is seeking $2,500 and an apology.
   Reached by phone on Wednesday, the woman, who describes herself as a digital entrepreneur, said the complaint is one of 15 she’s filed against salons from Vancouver to Abbotsford. Over March and April, she said, she contacted 18 salons and only three agreed to take her on as a client.
   “That really got to me. I shouldn’t have to do this amount of work to get a leg wax or a Brazilian wax. I shouldn’t have to scour to find a salon willing to do … what is customarily available to the public,” she said.

TOWING BILL OF RIGHTS FOR ONTARIANS

   The CAA and Ontario’s provincial towing association have signed on to a towing bill of rights in an effort to educate drivers who need roadside assistance.
   While claiming most operators in the province are honest and trustworthy, the organizations acknowledge there are problems with some drivers.
   “There are operators who do not prioritize customer service and have been taking advantage of people in need at the sign of the road,” said Terese Di Felice, CAA’s vice president of government and community relations.

AUSTRALIAN REFUGEE SUING CANADA FOR $2.55M

    NP:  Still, Utah is far from satisfied with his treatment at the hands of Canadian authorities. With his refugee claim finally behind him, he’s now suing the immigration department, the CBSA and the two CBSA officers involved in his file, claiming they delayed his case for nearly a decade out of “pure, sheer incompetence” — and because he comes from Australia.
    “When I first came here, the CBSA not only could not believe that a white Australian could be a refugee, they wouldn’t entertain it,” he said. Out of frustration, Utah said, he made an impassioned speech at his refugee hearing, saying he was “sick to death of the cynical opinions of people in all countries in relation to who can and what can be a refugee … because at the end of the day … we’re all human.”
    Utah’s lawsuit, filed in Federal Court in June and seeking $2.55 million, claims the two CBSA officers, Darryl Zelisko and Darryl Kane, allowed his refugee claim to stall for years in what “amounted to an abusive delay constituting a misfeasance in public office.”

FREELAND STILL BULLSH!TTING RE NAFTA

   NP:  A top Mexican negotiator put a new question mark Wednesday over Canada’s participation in NAFTA talks, suggesting this country will not necessarily join in next week if the U.S. and its southern neighbour finish their own, two-way deal.
   And Jesus Seade seemed to indicate that any bilateral agreement with the U.S. could cover major trilateral issues — issues of pressing importance to Canadian officials.
   Seade, who represents incoming Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said the U.S.-Mexico agreement could be struck as soon as this week, but possibly next week.
   Asked by reporters outside the offices of the U.S. Trade Representative in Washington if Canada would then join the talks, he said: “I don’t see any reason why they have to come after we finish. It’s up to (U.S. Trade Representative Robert) Lighthizer to organize his time.”

ISIS CALLS FOR ATTACKS ON CANADA

   The leader of the Islamic State group has called for attacks on Canada and other Western countries in a new audio recording, the first attributed to him in nearly a year.
   Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi urged the group’s followers to respond to recent defeats by carrying out bombings, stabbings and vehicular attacks in his purported 55-minute speech titled “Give Glad Tidings to the Steadfast,” which was published by the group’s media wing on Wednesday.
   “For the Mujahideen (holy warriors) the scale of victory or defeat is not dependent on a city or town being stolen or subject to that who has aerial superiority, intercontinental missiles or smart bombs,” al-Baghdadi said in the Arabic recording.

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

EXPLAINING THE INCESSANT WHINING OF SJWs

  Research in the past ten years or so has proven that our thoughts can literally reshape our brains. Norman Doidge, a psychiatrist and author of The Brain That Changes Itself, says that the brain can “rewire” itself to “cure previously incurable obsessions and trauma.”
   So, what does this have to do with SJWs? Well, apparently complaining is one of the things that rewires your brain — for the worse. Dr. Rick Hanson, a neuroscientist who authored the book Buddha’s Brain, explains that “negative stimuli produce more neural activity than do equally intensive positive ones. They are also perceived more easily and quickly.” This is sometimes called “negativity bias,” meaning that our brains give more weight to negative things than positive ones.
   The more you complain, the more you want to complain, and believe there’s something worth complaining about. This type of fixation on things we perceive as negative is called “rumination.” Margaret Wehrenberg, a licensed psychologist and author of The 10 Best-Ever Depression Management Techniques, explains that rumination is “repetitively going over a thought or a problem without completion.

SECRECY ON PARLIAMENT HILL INCIDENT

  A Senator is speaking out against the apparent secrecy on Parliament Hill following a security incident involving a pick-up truck that happened the other week.   “I don’t understand how we could have had such a serious breach on the Hill where a couple of people have been injured and we don’t even know what has happened,” Conservative Senator Leo Housakos said to the Sun about the recent incident.  “Why the secrecy?”
  An eyewitness told the Ottawa Sun the vehicle was at first in a line of cars on Vittoria St., a short street that runs alongside the Hill and leads to both public parking and the vehicle entrance to the main Parliament buildings. The truck then mounted the curb, struck individuals and turned into the Parliament Hill vehicle screening facility. The man driving the vehicle then got out of the car, attempted to run and was “tackled” by officers.

TRUDEAU CRIES "RACISM"

   Since defining your opponent before he can define himself is the oldest strategy in politics, it’s no surprise Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is attacking Conservative leader Andrew Scheer as the leader of a party filled with anti-immigrant racists.
  He’ll keep returning to this theme as the October 21, 2019 federal election approaches, as he did Sunday in his home riding of Papineau in Montreal.
  Formally announcing he’s running for re-election, Trudeau contrasted what he described as “my belief in positive politics” with what he called Scheer’s “belief in the politics of fear and division.”
  Playing the race card against Conservatives is nothing new for Liberals. It’s been in their DNA for generations.

MICHAEL COHEN PLEADS GUILTY

   President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to campaign finance violations and other charges, saying he made payments to influence the 2016 election at the direction of a candidate for federal office, potentially delivering a legal blow to the president.
   Cohen, 51, who agreed to a plea bargain with federal prosecutors earlier in the day, pleaded guilty to eight counts total, including five counts of tax evasion and one count of making a false statement to a financial institution. He also pleaded guilty to one count of making an excessive campaign contribution on Oct. 27, 2016, which is the same date Cohen finalized a payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement over an affair Daniels alleges she had with Trump.
   The most damaging statement by Michael Cohen was made when, acknowledging the charges against him, Cohen said he was directed to violate campaign law at the direction of an unnamed candidate for federal office, whom he did not name.

LIBERAL MP DARSHAN KANG: A DIRTY OLD MAN

   Calgary MP Darshan Kang has lost an appeal of a confidential House of Commons investigation that found he harassed a female staff member in his constituency office.
   Kang resigned from the Liberal caucus last August after denying allegations he inappropriately touched and harassed former staff member Rhea Bassi.
   A legal panel has now affirmed the findings of an investigation that “partially substantiated” the complaint, including that Kang “tricked” Bassi into visiting his Ottawa apartment in June 2017 where he repeatedly tugged at her jacket, caressed her hands and tried to massage her feet; the panel also affirmed that on a subsequent occasion, Kang persistently tried to enter Bassi’s Ottawa hotel room, despite her refusals.

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

MONTREAL'S EXPENSIVE WASTE TREATMENT

    Montreal Gazette:  Montrealers should brace themselves because the city is preparing to build the most expensive organic waste treatment centres in the world, sources are warning.
   The bids to design, build, operate and maintain the first three of five centres that the city has been planning to build for a decade have come in at 50 per cent above the city’s estimates, say sources who are familiar with the results of the calls for tenders.
  Nothing to see here, move along.

GOOD SAMARITAN STEPS IN

   After receiving a letter of complaint from Canada Post, a 96-year-old woman will be getting brand new front porch steps thanks to a local company that wants to give back to the community.
   Last week, Robert Williams said he and his 96-year-old mother — Edith Williams — received a letter at their East London home from Canada Post saying their steps posed a health and safety risk to the mail carrier.
   Ali Fayad, the director of business development at Ilderton-based Brosco Concrete, said he heard Williams’s story and decided he wanted to do something to help.
“It was like an immediate, knee jerk reaction,” Fayad said. “My first thought was what if that was my grandma?

INACCURATE LEGAL CLAIM IN LIBERAL BORDER POLICY

NP;  All reasonable Canadians would agree that foreigners claiming refugee status at the land border should be treated fairly. That these migrants are arriving from the only country considered “safe” by Canadian law obviously influences what constitutes “fair” treatment in this case. The designation of the United States as a “safe third country” has profound consequences in determining Canada’s exact obligations. Unfortunately, this aspect of the current border situation has been misrepresented by immigration minister Ahmed Hussen and senior bureaucrats who insist the Charter of Rights and Freedoms automatically grants a hearing to refugee claimants. Canadians are understandably confused by the government’s border policy because it is being justified on the basis of an inaccurate legal claim.

Monday, August 20, 2018

THE ZERO WITH HAIR

Trudeau formally announces he's running in 2019 election. 

"ARREST HER, SHE MADE THREATS"

Your racism has no place here,” PM tells Quebec woman who asked about illegal immigrants.

JP MORGAN GIVES SCATHING REPORT ON TESLA

   Elon Musk may be about to suffer another nervous meltdown on Twitter.
   Today, JP Morgan came out and finally issued a note that acknowledged what it seems that everybody has already realized: that funding for a Tesla go private bid has not, in fact, been secured. To add insult to injury, J.P. Morgan lowered its price target on the name by about 30% to $195.
  After Friday's plunge in Tesla shares following the publication of a bizarre interview in the NYT with CEO Elon Musk which revealed the state of his emotional breakdown, Tesla shares are down another 6% this morning, trading in the $280's in the pre market...

CALLS FOR USA CATHOLIC BISHOPS TO RESIGN EN MASSE

   Pope Francis, facing simultaneous clergy sexual abuse crises in several countries, on Monday wrote an unprecedented letter to all the world's Catholics promising that no effort will be spared to prevent abuse and its cover up.
   More than 700 educators and Catholic lay leaders have written an open letter urging the United States bishops to tender their collective resignation to Pope Francis in the wake of a string of scandals related to clerical sex abuse.
 

UK POLICE ARRESTING 3320 FOREIGNERS PER WEEK

   Police in Britain arrested more than 3,000 foreign nationals each week on average last year, according to new figures which revealed the share of overseas suspects rose to make up one in five people detained.
   Internal police data obtained by the Mail on Sunday showed the proportion of foreign suspects rose from 16 percent of arrests in 2015/16 to 19 percent in 2016/17 — when 172,732 of 931,155 individuals arrested were people from abroad.


CANADIANS SPEND 43% OF INCOME ON TAXES

Canadian Consumer Tax Index 2018 finds that last year the average Canadian family spent 43 per cent of its income on taxes, more than housing, food and clothing costs combined, which made up just 35.6 per cent. The annual study tracks the total tax bill of the average Canadian household from 1961 to 2017, and looks at both visible and hidden taxes that families pay to the federal, provincial and local governments, including income, payroll, sales, property, health, fuel and alcohol taxes, and more.

Sunday, August 19, 2018

REFUSING TO POLISH THE TURD

   Bonokoski, Toronto Sun:  Unlike most Canadians, stereotyped to the point of mockery for immediately apologizing for just about anything, Melissa Robichaud has no regrets over calling our prime minister a “piece of s—.”
     We have a prime minister in Justin Trudeau who loves drama and the sound of his own voice, who loves any mirror that reflects his image, and who will shamelessly insert himself into any narrative where political points can be scored by him playing the role of a compassionate knight in shining armor.
   He seems to love life when it has a soap opera feel to it, especially when he can well up with tears to steal the scene.
  But wait!  The CBC, as usual, lends a helping hand in polishing the Shiny Pony/turd.

FLIGHT OF CAPITAL FROM SAUDI ARABIA



According to research by JPMorgan, capital outflows of residents in Saudi Arabia are projected at US$65 billion in 2018, or 8.4 per cent of GDP. This is less than the US$80 billion lost in 2017, but a sign of a continued bleed. Significantly, the projection was made before the contretemps with Canada. According to research by Standard Chartered, the first quarter of 2018 saw US$14.4 billion in outward portfolio investment into foreign equities, the largest surge since 2008. There are concerns that the government is leaning on banks and asset managers to discourage outflows, a kind of informal capital-control regime.

This flight signals the dimming of the optimism surrounding Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 economic plan. Many of the institutional reforms outlined in the plan — designed to diversify the Saudi economy, attract foreign investment and create jobs — are needed to liberalize the state-led, resource-dependent economy. Investors had hoped Riyadh would follow through on economic reforms, but have been disheartened by such high-profile actions as the arrest of prominent businessmen last year, and a recent campaign to silence critics, especially women activists. These measures — add to them now the spat with Canada — indicate that the state favours regime stability and consolidation over the rule of law, and the creation of institutions and regulations that can check the state.
How to reverse the flow? There are good regulatory reforms in process in Saudi Arabia, including a new bankruptcy law and a privatization draft law. There are new openings for foreigners to buy shares on the local stock exchange and to become 100 per cent owners of businesses in key sectors like engineering. In the opening of the entertainment market, there is clearly room to grow and investment opportunity should abound.

MANDATORY CHECK-IN PRONOUN

Christie Blatchford, NP:  Gender pronouns are ruining the great things about hockey.

CMA AGAINST MEDICAL CANNABIS SYSTEM

The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) recently announced that it supports the elimination of the current medical cannabis system once federal legalization is implemented in October. The rationale is “the lack of evidence, the lack of scientific studies showing it actually works, the lack of knowledge around dosing and interactions with other medications.”
    However, with its position, the CMA has not only demonstrated its lack of willingness to learn about this growing field, it has abandoned physicians who will invariably field more inquiries about cannabis from patients. This is especially problematic given the growing scope of cannabis as a therapeutic option in conditions including epilepsy and spasticity. Moreover, in the context of a national opioid crisis, cannabis is growing as an alternative for chronic pain patients, and is currently recommended as a third-line medication according to the national pain guidelines.

NOMAD IN THE RHUBARB

MONREAL — Police in Quebec are investigating after someone shot a high-ranking member of the Hells Angels while he was riding a motorcycle in Lachute on Saturday.
Police found Phillip (Phil) Boudreault, 41, a vice-president of the Hells Angels’ Nomads chapter in Ontario and former Olympian, lying in a ditch, with his motorcycle at his side.
Sources said he suffered a punctured lung in the attack and is in hospital being treated for his injuries. He reportedly shielded his girlfriend — who was riding on the back of the bike – from the gunfire and she was unhurt.

Saturday, August 18, 2018

UN HC "NO MIGRANT CRISIS IN EUROPE"

   The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, has claimed that while Germany saw a migrant crisis in 2015, there is currently no crisis in Europe, and some are over dramatizing mass migration
   Mr Grandi said that despite a continued flow of migrants from North Africa and elsewhere, Europe is not undergoing a “migrant crisis,” saying: “the real refugee crises were and are in Africa, in the Middle East, [and] in Asia,” German newspaper Die Zeitreports.
   The UN official also slammed the rhetoric of the leaders of the European populist movement such as Italian leader Matteo Salvini, saying: “to say that there is an invasion of Europe, that we are a continent besieged by people coming to exploit us, is profoundly wrong”. He claimed such rhetoric promoted xenophobia and racism.

THERE'S NOTHING TREMENDOUSLY WRONG WITH ME

   Blatchford, NP:  It’s a very serious matter, of course — a prominent Canadian lawyer, James Cooper Morton, has been criminally charged with forging court documents and signatures and attempting to obstruct justice.
   In essence, Morton is alleged to have faked a certificate of divorce from his Justice of the Peace wife Rhonda Shousterman so that he could marry his law clerk, Jennifer Packwood.
   As colleague Sam Pazzano of the Toronto Sun — he broke the story — noted wryly a few days ago, sheesh, with two wives, two mothers-in-law, “The punishment is the crime.

THE INEFFECTUAL JAGMEET SINGH

  Rex Murphy, NP: I believe it was a theory in the early days of Jagmeet Singh’s rise to the top of the NDP (a hillock, not a mountain) that he was just the man to take on Justin Trudeau, on Mr. Trudeau’s own turf. The word “natty” occurred a lot in those assessments, there being a whole harvest of articles about Mr. Singh’s fastidious personal style. No less an oracle than BuzzFeed — Debrett’s for Valley girls — declared him the “most stylish politician in Canada by like a million kilometres” (a whole lot).
   The sum of all this is that Mr. Singh was not/is not the potential rival of Justin Trudeau in any of the categories he was originally thought to be, that the early bright flashes were more or less the highpoint. Should he lose in Burnaby, there are some in his party who will see that as a relief, a chance to try again for someone at the top to bring the party back to — at least — Tom Mulcair’s level of performance. And should he win, aside from escalating the intense frictions nationally and provincially on pipeline access, it will be more an exercise in salvage than a victory as such.

LIBERAL MP GIVES CERTIFICATE TO ANTI-SEMITE

   A Liberal MP is under fire for presenting a “certificate of appreciation” to a man one Jewish advocacy group labels a purveyor of anti-Semitism.
   B’nai Brith Canada has started a petition demanding that Mississauga-Erin Mills MP Iqra Khalid apologize and rescind the federal certificate she presented last week to Amin El-Maoued, the public relations chief of Palestine House.
   The Jewish group accuses El-Maoued of leading a July 2017 rally “laden with hate-filled and anti-Semitic slogans,” including chants of “Israel and Hitler are the same.”
    Palestine House, which describes itself as “an educational, social and cultural centre of the Palestinian-Canadian Community,” lost all federal funding in 2012. The Conservative government at the time cited what it called a “pattern of support for extremism.”

Friday, August 17, 2018

I CALLED HIM A PIECE OF SH!T

   The widow of a civilian killed in last Friday’s Fredericton shootings says she has no regrets about the profane phrase she directed at Justin Trudeau during his condolence call to her Wednesday.
    Melissa Robichaud said her family was hurt the prime minister did not reach out to them Sunday while in the city, where he paid public tribute to Constables Robb Costello and Sara Burns at city hall.
   Robichaud said Trudeau told her he had wanted to give his condolences for the death of her husband, Donnie Robichaud, but couldn’t because he was meeting with families of the police officers.
   “So I said so what. They wear a vest, they carry a gun, that makes them more important than one of us? I called him a piece of (expletive),” she said in an interview Thursday.

RIGHTS OF BAND MEMBERS LIVING OFF-RESERVE

A Federal Court judge has thrown out an Alberta First Nation’s requirement that its chief and council live on reserve, in a case that weighed the First Nation’s right to self-government against the Charter rights of its citizens.

The decision builds on other cases that have gradually extended voting and governance rights to band members living off-reserve, including a 1999 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that found First Nation citizens are often only seen as “truly Aboriginal” if they live on reserve.

In this case, launched by a councillor for the Bigstone Cree Nation who was removed in 2015 for failing to move onto reserve lands, the First Nation argued its customs and right to self-government must be respected as “integral to the process of reconciliation” between Canada and its Indigenous peoples.

VENEZUELA CUTS ZEROS FROM CURRENCY

    MEDELLÍN, Colombia — Faced with nearly incomprehensible inflation — 32,714 percent as of Wednesday — Venezuelan officials thought they had a solution: They changed the color of the bank notes and increased their denomination. Then they said they would lop off three zeros. And when that didn’t seem enough, they announced they would cut off two more.

The tactics have left Venezuelans like Yosmar Nowak, the owner of a coffee shop in Caracas, convinced that there is no solution in sight and that the government cannot even bring down the price of a cup of coffee, an eye-watering 2 million bolivars.

CIA HUBRIS EXPOSED AGENTS IN CHINA

A bombshell new report in Foreign Policy reveals that up to 30 CIA agents and assets working in China were identified and executed by Chinese counterintelligence over a two year period after the CIA's encrypted communications system was infiltrated.

The report is based on former and current unnamed CIA officials who were part of the program, which established a network of spies across China. The in-country spies communicated with their CIA handlers via an online system capable of being logged into from any laptop or computer.

But when starting in late 2010 Chinese authorities began to sweep up the network of spies for interrogation and eventual execution, the CIA was "shellshocked" in the words of one former official, and for eight years a joint FBI-NSA-CIA investigation has sought answers as to what went wrong in what is widely considered "one of the CIA’s worst failures in decades".

ONTARIO DOCTORS NEGOTIATING NEW CONTRACT

   Toronto Sun: Doug Ford’s government has appointed a new lead negotiator for crucial contract talks with province’s doctors, selecting a man who helped the premier’s late brother secure a key labour deal during his term as mayor of Toronto.

Robert Reynolds, a former labour negotiator for the City of Toronto and Magna International, was made negotiations chair for talks with the Ontario Medical Association, according to a cabinet order made public this week.

Ontario’s doctors have been without a contract for five years and were engaged in difficult negotiations with the previous Liberal government, something Ford has vowed to address.

TORONTO WILL NOT WIN LEGAL CHALLENGE

   The city of Toronto has little hope of winning a legal challenge against the newly enacted Bill 5, says a confidential legal opinion obtained Thursday by the Toronto Sun.

The opinion by city solicitor Wendy Wahlberg and her staff makes it clear that City Clerk Ulli Watkiss is “now confident” she is able to deliver a 25-ward election in time for Oct. 22, and litigation or a sudden reversal to a 47-ward model will result in “continued uncertainty” for voters, candidates and those administering the election.

“Among other things it could undermine the clerk’s ability to administer a fair election and public confidence in a fair outcome of the election,” Wahlberg’s opinion states.

Thursday, August 16, 2018

GRASPING MUSK SUING ONTARIO GOVERNMENT

  These days when one hears "Tesla" and "lawsuit" in the same sentence, conventional wisdom is that yet another disgruntled investor is suing Elon Musk's company and/or Musk himself, seeking recoveries from Musk's "going private" tweet, either longs or shorts. In this case however, the tables are turned, because as Electrek reports, one month after the Ontario government shut down its "generous" EV rebate, Tesla is suing the Ontario government claiming it  "deliberately and arbitrarily" targeted the company, discriminating against Tesla based on how it was treated differently from other automakers through the shutdown of the EV incentives.
   This is what happened: after the election of the Conservative party in June, Doug Ford, the party’s leader, said that they were shutting down the cap-and-trade program, which was financing the EV rebate - which was worth up to $14,000 - to finance a 10-cent per litre tax reduction on gasoline.

ITALY'S GENOA BRIDGE: A DISASTER FORETOLD

   Riccardo Morandi, the architect of the Genoa bridge was also a 'concrete innovator', favouring pre-stressed reinforced concrete that was later shown to be subject to serious corrosion problems, according to professor of construction, Antonio Brencich, from Genoa University.
   Until this week, Morandi's bridge seemed to be an example not of style over substance – one of the stereotypes of Italian design – but of its exact opposite: it was pig-ugly, but it seemed to do the job.
   There had been alarm bells if only they'd been noted. Morandi had built similar bridges in Venezuela and Libya.

SAN FRANCISCO'S STINKING PROBLEM

San Francisco has a real problem. In fact, you could say that it stinks. That problem is that there's too much feces on the sidewalks in San Francisco.
The city has fielded about 15,000 calls regarding turds on the streets since January 1 — an average of 65 calls every day! And it's not just irresponsible dog owners, though they certainly are part of the issue. No, San Francisco has to worry about human fecal matter, thanks to a homeless population that runs rampant with not enough places to go to the bathroom.
The poop problem is so bad that San Franciscans have grown accustomed to watching their step to avoid piles of the nasty stuff. And now, the city has approved a new squad of sanitation employees to take care of the waste matter in neighborhoods where the issue has gotten particularly out of hand.

THE POUTING NEW YORK GOVERNOR CUOMO

    Wednesday in New York City while giving a speech, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) said America “was never that great,” referencing President Donald Trump‘s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
   Wrapping up his speech that was highly critical of Trump, Cuomo said, “We’re not going to make America great again. It was never that great.”

MAKING A NAME FOR HIMSELF

   A weekend fashion photo shoot at the National Holocaust Monument was an inappropriate use of the site, which Jewish leaders say should be a place for reflection and learning, not levity.
    “It’s not a place for fashion shoot,” said Mina Cohn, director of the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship at Carleton University’s Max and Tessie Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies. “You wouldn’t do a fashion shoot at the National War Memorial downtown. That is not acceptable. And it’s not acceptable here either.”

GLORY-SEEKING TRESPASSERS

   ST. THOMAS – The obstruction of justice trial of two Aylmer journalists isn’t just putting freedom of the press to the test, it’s revealing how some police officers view the media.
   And what they see through their lens can be a little ugly.
   Take the testimony heard Wednesday from Elgin OPP Insp. Brad Fishleigh, the officer who gave the order to arrest Aylmer Express publisher John Hueston, 67, and editor Brett Hueston, 33, the father-and-son journalism duo who showed up uninvited to where a car had driven over a cliff into Lake Erie.

LONDON'S PRECIOUS POSTIE

   Edith Williams has been walking up and down her front porch steps for more than 60 years and at the age of 96, she continues to do so.
    But it’s a different story for the Canada Post letter carrier who delivers mail to Williams’ home on Seeley Drive in east London.
   The Crown corporation sent Williams and her son Robert, who lives with her, a letter last week saying they have until Aug. 23 to fix their steps — because the top one is 10 inches, 2 1/4 inches too high – or move their mailbox so the carrier doesn’t have to use the steps.

PUBLIC SECTOR EXECS PAY FREEZE

   Toronto Sun:  Ontario has frozen the salaries of executives across the public sector as it reviews how raises are granted to top earners at agencies that include school boards, universities and hospitals.
   In a directive issued to public-sector agencies this week, Treasury Board President Peter Bethlenfalvy said all base salaries for executives cannot increase beyond their current amounts as the government conducts a compensation review that’s expected to wrap in June next year.
  The move affects those who make $100,000 or more at public-sector organizations and has raised concerns from those representing executives at school boards and hospitals.

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

STRZOK, FEINSTEIN & THE RUSSIA PROBE

   One of the salient facts to remember in the wake of the firing (finally!) of Peter Strzok is that the man was the chief of the Counterespionage Section of the FBI. That means the man in charge of counterespionage for the Unites States of America was conducting an extramarital affair with another important Justice Department employee via text messages that could easily have been hacked by a high school student.
   Roll that around in your mind for a moment. Can you think of anything dumber in the intelligence world? You don't have to have read any of a dozen John le Carré novels to understand how foolhardy it was, how it made Strzok subject to all sorts of skullduggery from foreign powers. No wonder it took them so long to fire him. There must have been a lot to investigate besides his ridiculously biased and jejune politics.
    Now roll back five years to when it was discovered that Dianne Feinstein's chauffeur of twenty years (!) was a spy for the People's Republic of China. (Well, five years for Dianne. The rest of us found out only last week.)

    

PENNSYLVANIA'S PREDATOR PRIESTS

   At least 1,000 children were molested by hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses, as senior church officials took steps to cover it up, according to a landmark grand jury report released Tuesday.
    The grand jury report, which states in excess of 300 clergy committed abuse over a period of decades from the mid-1950s, the “real number” of abused children could be “in the thousands,” since numerous records were either lost or victims were afraid to come forward. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced the two-year investigation found a systematic cover-up by senior church officials in both the Keystone State and the Vatican.
   “The cover-up was sophisticated. And all the while, shockingly, church leadership kept records of the abuse and the cover-up,” said Shapiro at a press conference in Harrisburg. “These documents, from the dioceses’ own ‘Secret Archives,’ formed the backbone of this investigation.”

CALGARY'S TRIPLE-PENSION CLUB

   The latest outrage-inducing revelation from the gilded, feathered nest at city hall once again comes from the good folk at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
   Unlike most of us private-sector workers in Alberta — 76 per cent of whom don’t have workplace pension plans — 236 city employees are set to get not one, not two, but three registered pension plans courtesy of taxpayers.
   “It’s a top-up pension on top of a top-up pension on top of a pension that describes itself as ‘quite generous’,” said Colin Craig, the Alberta director of the CTF, who filed a freedom of information request with the city that revealed the damning information.

ANOTHER CUT IN DEMAND FOR CRUDE OIL

   As if pipeline bottlenecks weren’t enough, Canadian heavy oil producers are facing a new barrier to marketing their crude.
   New rules limiting the amount of sulphur allowed in shipping fuel is expected to cut demand for both high-sulphur fuel oil and the sour crude that yields it. In Canada, that could extend — or worsen — the biggest price slump in nearly five years.
    As surging production runs up against limited pipeline space, Western Canada Select’s discount to West Texas Intermediate widened to more than $31 a barrel this month from an average of about $13 a barrel last year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The bigger discount is needed to incentivize shipping by rail, which costs more, said Kevin Birn, a director on the North American crude oil markets team at IHS Markit.