More, More Politics (Ot But Relevant)

[Airband]

_{Yup, oblivious to the obvious. Didn't even know Al Qaeda has been destroyed.}

[Boney]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bj-gallagher/donald-trump-is-the-epito_b_8019156.html

[J.O.]

If Trump is the model of American success, then I'd rather be a failure. He's as dark and hollow as the inside of a cow.

[Guest]

J.O. that is demeaning to the cow.

[DEFCON]

I thought the article’s headline was fairly accurate, but to refer to Trump as being unqualified for the Presidency is quite unfair to say the least. The only true failing Trump has in my mind is knowing how to keep his mouth shut, not always, but at least from time-to-time; his comments about Fiorina’s face for example.

Jeb Bush, once the Republican favourite, has now let everyone see that he’s no sharper a pencil than his brother. While Trump and I both like what the good Dr. Carson has to say, I am beginning to listen to a lot of what Fiorina has to say too. Other than the potential of Rand Paul, I don’t think the rest of the Republican field has the stuffing necessary to take them forward.

On the other side of the Party line sits Hillary and Bernie? Although I think Bernie is a nice and genuine man, I’d prefer to see Trump take the Presidency and never Hillary.

[Airband]

Whoever the GOP selects as their candidate will by necessity have to tone down the hard right rhetoric and pivot toward the centre during the general election campaign if they want to attract independents and loosely committed democrats.
Republicans know that even if they won't admit it and Trump will fade. As to who could pull that off? Fiorina maybe, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Rubio continue to gain strength and eventually the nomination.

[DEFCON]

Everyone is aware that Trump has been a member of both, but doesn't hold any particular loyalty to either Party.

That being said, the current polling is tabulating the positions of 'registered' Republicans only, which means, there are a whole lot of Democrats out there that are more than likely to cast their vote with Trump than any of their Party candidates.

[Lakelad]

.

Is Stephen Harper 'Americanising' Canada?

Wed Sep 23, 2015 - BBC News
Anthony Zurcher - North America reporter

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's political opponents have a difficult time figuring out exactly which disliked US leader he most reminds them of.

Is it President Richard Nixon, with his mercurial temper, paranoid scheming, penchant for scandal and divisive politics? Perhaps it's the foreign policy hawkishness - fuelled by an evangelical certitude and oil patch brashness - of President George W Bush?

Or maybe it's not an American at all. One Canadian writer recently drew parallels to Russian President Vladimir Putin, with his "contempt for the media", anti-democratic tendencies and - yes - love of hockey.

It's the similarities between the Canadian prime minister and the conservative politics of his neighbour to the south that seem to come up the most, however.

"Normal, peaceful, thoughtful Americans wouldn't enjoy it here anymore," Heather Mallick, writing in Harper's Magazine, tells those in the US who once looked to Canada as a progressive counterweight to their own nation's right-wing political drama. "We're becoming precisely what you're trying to escape."

Meanwhile, many American conservatives are touting Mr Harper's legacy, built over nearly 10 years in office, as he seeks to become the first Canadian prime minister in more than 100 years to win a fourth term in office next month.

"Conservatives, wherever they live, can be pleased with Stephen Harper," writes the National Review's Jay Nordlinger. "He is a leader of the West, an advocate of freedom, democracy, capitalism, human rights - Western civilisation, we could say."

"He is a leader who speaks our language, thinks our thoughts," Nordlinger concludes.

It's difficult to dispute that Mr Harper has a list of accomplishments that would make an American Republican blush.

His cuts to national consumption and income taxes have dried up money for social programmes - a "starve the beast" style of conservatism that first emerged during US President Ronald Reagan's rise to power during the 1980s.

He discontinued a national long-gun registry, boosted mandatory criminal sentences and increased funding for prison construction.

"Our government believes in standing up for victims of crime and their families, putting their rights and interests ahead of those of criminals, and that a prison sentence should mean what it says," Mr Harper recently said.

He's cut funding to government-funded research into climate change, pulled Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol agreement to control greenhouse gasses and - his critics allege - singled out environmentalist groups for tax audits.

He pushed stricter voter identification rules and cut funding to government election outreach efforts.

In foreign policy he's advocated Canadian air strikes in Syria, offered a full-throated support of Israel and amped up the "war on terrorism" rhetoric. Following the attack on the Canadian parliament building by a lone shooter last year, he pushed through Bill C-51, which increased government policing, information-sharing and surveillance powers.

The rightward trajectory of Canadian politics, then, seems clear. Whether Canadians still support this course is increasingly in doubt, however.

The latest opinion surveys have Mr Harper's party polling around 30%, roughly even with the left-leaning Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party. In other words, nearly two-thirds of the Canadian public currently prefers something other than what the Conservative Party is selling.

'The Canadian public will soon have a chance to tell him whether they still agree or if, in their view, their nation has gone south - in more ways than one.'

.

[Boney]

Also interesting

ps...Edited to add. Too funny.

Trump says it like it is, unlike most politicians. However, I don't agree with some of his derogatory comments. Wish he would turn that down, but then, it would be against his deminor.

[J.O.]

Quite accurate.

[Innuendo]

Not trying to make a partisan political point here, but I wonder just how many candidates have withdrawn so far from this election due to past social media "Foot in mouth" gaffes that have come back to haunt them.

Seems every other day someone is pulling out because of some Twitter or Face Book "gem" that someone has unearthed.

Must drive the Party organizers nuts.

[Fido]

As of yesterday it was 9

[J.O.]

I'd be willing to bet there's plenty more who are still on the ballot who've said things just as bad (or worse) with an anonymous user name.

[Innuendo]

And another one bites the dust

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-ndp-candidate-quits-over-social-media-posts-linking-jewish-sect-to-taliban-1.3243053

[Don Hudson]

We live in period of time in which Reason has left the building. The Overton window has moved too far to the left.

[Guest]

Liberals release their fiscal plan and costing numbers.

https://www.liberal.ca/files/2015/09/The-Liberal-fiscal-plan-and-costing.pdf

[Guest]

It's only a poll but nevertheless interesting.

CTVNews.ca Staff
Published Monday, September 28, 2015 6:46AM EDT

The latest nightly tracking by Nanos Research for CTV News and The Globe and Mail shows that the Conservatives and the Liberals are in a tight race nationally, while support for the NDP continues to slip.

Voters were asked: "If a federal election were held today, could you please rank your top two current local voting preferences?"

The latest numbers show:

• 33.0 per cent supported the Conservatives as their top choice
• 31.6 per cent picked the Liberals as their top choice
• 26.9 per cent chose the NDP

The results are another new low mark for the NDP since Nanos began its nightly tracking on Sept. 4. The previous low was set on Sunday, when the party was at 27.6 per cent support. Poll support for the NDP has been on the decline for the last three nights, while support for the Conservatives has increased during the same period.

The numbers show Ontario is emerging as a key battleground in the election race between the Liberals and the Conservatives. The two parties are in a dead heat in the province, with the Liberals at 38.9 per cent support and the Conservatives at 38.1 per cent. Support for the NDP has dipped in Ontario to 19.4 per cent.

Poll methodology

A national dual-frame (land and cell) random telephone survey is conducted nightly by Nanos Research throughout the campaign using live agents. Each evening a new group of 400 eligible voters are interviewed. The daily tracking figures are based on a three-day rolling sample composed of 1,200 interviews. To update the tracking a new day of interviewing is added and the oldest day dropped. The margin of error 1,062 decided voters is ±3.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The subsample for Ontario is based on 317 decided individuals. A sample of 317 respondents is accurate ±5.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Full poll at Nanos Research

[flyinghigh]

And another one bites the dust

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-ndp-candidate-quits-over-social-media-posts-linking-jewish-sect-to-taliban-1.3243053

And today a Liberal candidate who it appears is stupid enough to think that 9-11 was an inside job by theUS government had to resign.

9-11 an inside job, peeing in a cup, never heard of Aushwitz....How do the parties find idiot candidates like this. Do they have a stupidity contest and choose the winners?

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/vancouver+island+liberal+candidate+resigns+after+questioning/11397717/story.html?__lsa=7362-f880

[boestar]

The official account of 9/11 has been under scrutiny since soon after it happened. She is far from the only one that believes this. I don't agree 100% with the official story either

[Mitch Cronin]

Now be careful Boestar... Anyone who publicly doubts the honesty of governance by the great military industrial complex can quickly be labeled a "conspiracy theorist", which under the guidance of newspeak has come to be as despicable and almost synonymous with "conspiracist"... In any case it's most certainly enough to tarnish ones [cough] reputation....

Remember.... 747 belly tanks can blow up by themselves, and big steel-framed buildings can easily fall without resistance when the furniture gets to blazing ....

Never mind what you know, it's what the government and all who have swallowed it's pablum want you to know that counts.

[inchman]

CT's can't agree on anything close to a single version what happened. The official account is at least a continuum.

I have not seen a CT that paints anywhere near a full story from start to end. All they do is try to take little snippets of unsubstantiated engineering, guesswork or "eyewitness accounts" to suggest that the official account is a sham. Not one conspiracy theory stands up to scrutiny itself.

And we all know how accurate eyewitness accounts are in aircraft accidents, even from right within the aircraft. Sometimes even pilots have a false impression of what was happening in the middle of a crisis (Mulhouse–Habsheim).

Here we are 14 years later and more people have left the CT bandwagon than remain. Even Volkswagen couldn't keep their dirty little secret a secret for more than a few years and I'm sure there was a lot less people involved in that than would have had to be involved in 9/11.

[DEFCON]

From the article linked above:

“On Friday she said she still doesn't know how the New York towers collapsed since she posted her skepticism on Facebook in 2013, but said she's moved on.

"We will never know how those buildings came down," said Manna.

&

“Manna said she firmly believes that 9-11 was a terrorist attack against the United States and that it never entered her mind to consider the conspiracy theories suggesting otherwise.

"I didn't go on thinking who did it, and why did they do it. I just didn't believe that physically it could have happened ... and then I moved on," Manna said.”

Unless there’s more out there, I didn’t see anything that suggested Manna claimed the US government had anything to do with the crimes of 911?

[boestar]

Your beliefs, My Beliefs and the Beliefs of everyone are different. Nothing will ever change that (except maybe drugging the population with Chemtrails ). Those beliefs should not be a reason to resign a position unless there is a positive chance it will affect how you execute your position.

[Innuendo]

Does anyone know if the parties can run a replacement for these "Withdrawals" in the time remaining. I imagine that a candidate must have filed by a certain deadline to be on a ballot.

I think she is # 11 on the list, is the party just off the ballot for that riding?

[Guest]

Does anyone know if the parties can run a replacement for these "Withdrawals" in the time remaining. I imagine that a candidate must have filed by a certain deadline to be on a ballot.

I think she is # 11 on the list, is the party just off the ballot for that riding?

According to the CBC if replacement has yet to be done, it is too late.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-2015-election-candidates-1.3247378?cmp=rss