President Dodo

Obama ethics chief warns Trump: Tweet on CNN could be evidence in AT&T case

Norm Eisen, the chief White House ethics lawyer under former President Obama, warned President Trump on Saturday that his latest tweet targeting CNN could be used against his Justice Department in its legal fight to block AT&T's merger with Time Warner.

"Dear Dodo-in-Chief: u realize that this tweet is going 2be an exhibit against u in the DOJ -TimeWarner antitrust case right? It also smacks of collusion since u did it on day when Vlad cracked down on US networks," Eisen tweeted. "For that reason, it may open u to other civil liability."

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/361826-obama-ethics-chief-warns-trump-tweet-on-cnn-could-be-evidence

Thursday's Ride - Fleuve St-Laurent en Peterborough Indy 87

The law doesn't matter to Trump

A rather strange situation is unfolding at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Bizarre to us, but just another day in Trumpland. It started last week when CFPB Director Richard Cordray (an Obama appointee) stepped down and named Leandra English deputy director of the agency. The agency's official website posted the news along with this statement from Cordray, "Leandra is a seasoned professional who has spent her career of public service focused on promoting smooth and efficient operations." Soon after though Donald Trump decided to make his own appointment naming Budget Director Mick Mulvaney as the interim head of the agency. This has caused quite the uproar, with Democrats like Chuck Schumer saying:

"The process for succession laid out in Dodd Frank is clear: Leandra English, not Mick Mulvaney, is the acting dir of @CFPB. By attempting to install Mr. Mulvaney as director, the Trump admin is ignoring the established, legal order of succession that we purposefully put in place."

How Mulvaney has time to lead the budget office and the CFPB is beyond us, but now we are learning the battle over who will temporary lead the CFPB is going to head to court.

The Hill reports:

The deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Leandra English, is suing President Trump in order to block Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney from taking over as acting director of the agency.

English filed a complaint Sunday night against Trump and Mulvaney, whom the president nominated to be CFPB's interim leader.

English claims that she is the rightful acting director of the CFPB...

Read CFPB deputy director’s suit saying Trump can't fill consumer agency post

You're #1 Donny

Wednesday's Ride - Boating Through Peterborough Lift Lock - Sit Back Sunday GoPro Cruise

Footnote: My great grandfather did the hydraulics for this lift lock in 1906. You can read about him and how they have used his invention today to cool the mines in Sudbury......

Link: http://charleshtaylor.blogspot.ca/

MILESTONES

MILESTONES

From birth we set a series of milestone. First it is crawling, then walking and then talking. Once we achieve one milestone we set our eyes on the next one. When I was ten I looked forward to being 13, then at 19 it was that age of majority, 21 when I was old enough to go to the bar, get married and no longer needed my parents’ permission, I soon realized i was now fully responsible for my own mistakes.

My 30^th and 40th birthdays came and went without incident, then there was my 50^th and all those damn shirts, 23 years later I still have one hanging in the cupboard as a reminder.

Today as my 73rd rapidly approaches I reflect back on my family and the milestones they set for themselves and for me. It was exciting times watching them grow, go to school, play sports, graduate and give us grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Now I have a new series of milestones that I have set for myself. First is my 75^th, I really look forward to that birthday. Then there is my 79^th, if I make it there I will have outlived my dad, he set a lot of standards and goals for me and I am sure he would like to see me live longer than he. Then, of course there is 84, a year longer than mom who was the most loyal, loving and loved woman in the life of many foster children and family members.

My final goal is to outlive my grandmother who passed at the ripe old age of 101…. Yup we all need milestones to achieve.

Where were the CBC, CTV and Global on covering this?????

"This month, National Observer was the only Canadian media outlet in Bonn, Germany, accredited to cover this year’s UN climate summit.

The only other coverage for Canadians was coming from someone peddling conspiracy theories outside the conference. She was sent by the far-right, climate-doubting Rebel Media. Yes, the same website in the news recently over its fawning coverage of white supremacists at the deadly protest in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I don’t know about you, but I find this profoundly disturbing."

I was the lone Canadian media reporter inside the world climate summit

Read more: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/11/23/opinion/i-was-lone-canadian-reporter-inside-world-climate-summit

Putting the con in conservative

For those Americans who have enjoyed their Thanksgiving turkey and college football, but just can’t digest Donald Trump, a message of hope from the Great White North: his days are numbered.

I say that because we have seen the same movie in Canada. For nearly 10 years, we had a leader who was neo-conservative, populist and authoritarian. The major difference between our two countries is that Canadians know how the movie ends, while many Americans are full of angst. They fear that the Orange One is not just an aberration, but the future. That turned out not to be true for ‘Harperism’ and it won’t be true for ‘Trumpism’ either.

The evidence is overwhelming that President Donald Trump is playing from former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s doomed playbook.

On taxes, both leaders championed deep corporate tax-cuts, arguing that the benefits would trickle down to middle and lower-income families. That’s just shilling for the rich. All it did in Canada was allow corporations to hoard half a trillion dollars that they were too chicken-hearted or venal to invest, according to then Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney.

In Harperland, the corporate tax-rate was dropped to a rock-bottom 15 per cent. In Trumpland, it will go from 35 to 20 per cent if his new legislation passes. The only trickle down from these numbers in Canada was that the government voluntarily deprived the public coffers of staggering amounts of revenue, in return for the square root of bugger all—as the late great Rafe Mair would have put it.

Harper and Trump: political peas in a pod

Read more: https://ipolitics.ca/2017/11/26/harper-trump-political-peas-pod/

Idle threats from the rich

If you tax the rich they won't leave: U.S. data contradicts millionaires threats

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/20/if-you-tax-the-rich-they-wont-leave-us-data-contradicts-millionaires-threats?CMP=share_btn_fb

In the classic Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged, the rich go “on strike” – withdrawing their services and disappearing from society in protest against taxes and regulation. Weary of carrying an ungrateful world on their shoulders, business leaders and other top income earners finally shrug, and leave the world without them.

The book’s metaphor inspires political rhetoric to this day: if you tax the rich, they will leave. Variations on the threat are issued by well-off individuals all over the world – not least in the United States, where each state sets its own tax policies, and periodic warnings are issued that taxes on the rich will lead to millionaire migration to more obliging US states.

When Oregon voters passed a millionaire tax at the start of this decade, for example, the state’s richest resident, Nike CEO Phil Knight, warned the tax would set off a “death spiral … in which thousands of our most successful residents will leave”. As California considered similar taxes, policymakers cautioned “nothing is more mobile than a millionaire and his money”. In New Jersey, governor Chris Christie simply stated: “Ladies and Gentlemen, if you tax them, they will leave.”

But does this rhetoric stand up to statistical scrutiny? To better understand elite migration across state lines, I analysed tax return data from every million-dollar income-earner in the United States. The dataset includes 3.7 million top-earning individuals, who collectively filed more than 45 million tax returns over more than a dozen years – showing where millionaires live and where they move to.

And it turns out that place still matters for the rich – much more so than we might think.

Tuesday's Ride - Used 1967 Egg Harbor 37 Vintage Motor Yacht for sale in Manteo, North Ca...

The Russian connections are not paying off

Trump Organization Will Exit From Its Struggling SoHo Hotel in New York

The announcement came on his television show, “The Apprentice.” Donald J. Trump would open his second luxury hotel in New York, a “work of art” in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan that would become “an awe-inspiring masterpiece.”

That was 11 years ago. The 46-story skyscraper, it turned out, was actually an albatross for Mr. Trump — drawing local opposition soon after its unveiling, partisan protests when he became a candidate for president and political scrutiny because of its early ties to a dubious Russian deal maker.

Now, in the latest sign of strain in the president’s family business, the Trumps want no more.

The Trump Organization has reached a deal that will allow the company to exit the property by the end of next month, the company said Wednesday. It is the second time this year the Trump name was erased from a hotel development, after a June announcement in Toronto.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/business/trump-organization-soho-hotel.html?emc=edit_na_20171122&nl=breaking-news&nlid=12722706&ref=cta&_r=0

An error in judgement or betrayal????

EXCLUSIVE: WHAT TRUMP REALLY TOLD KISLYAK AFTER COMEY WAS CANNED

During a May 10 meeting in the Oval Office, the president betrayed his intelligence community by leaking the content of a classified, and highly sensitive, Israeli intelligence operation to two high-ranking Russian envoys, Sergey Kislyak and Sergey Lavrov. This is what he told them—and the ramifications.

On a dark night at the tail end of last winter, just a month after the inauguration of the new American president, an evening when only a sickle moon hung in the Levantine sky, two Israeli Sikorsky CH-53 helicopters flew low across Jordan and then, staying under the radar, veered north toward the twisting ribbon of shadows that was the Euphrates River. On board, waiting with a professional stillness as they headed into the hostile heart of Syria, were Sayeret Matkal commandos, the Jewish state’s elite counterterrorism force, along with members of the technological unit of the Mossad, its foreign-espionage agency. Their target: an ISIS cell that was racing to get a deadly new weapon thought to have been devised by Ibrahim al-Asiri, the Saudi national who was al-Qaeda’s master bombmaker in Yemen.

It was a covert mission whose details were reconstructed for Vanity Fair by two experts on Israeli intelligence operations. It would lead to the unnerving discovery that ISIS terrorists were working on transforming laptop computers into bombs that could pass undetected through airport security. U.S. Homeland Security officials—quickly followed by British authorities—banned passengers traveling from an accusatory list of Muslim-majority countries from carrying laptops and other portable electronic devices larger than a cell phone on arriving planes. It would not be until four tense months later, as foreign airports began to comply with new, stringent American security directives, that the ban would be lifted on an airport-by-airport basis.

In the secretive corridors of the American espionage community, the Israeli mission was praised by knowledgeable officials as a casebook example of a valued ally’s hard-won field intelligence being put to good, arguably even lifesaving, use.

Yet this triumph would be overshadowed by an astonishing conversation in the Oval Office in May, when an intemperate President Trump revealed details about the classified mission to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and Sergey I. Kislyak, then Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Along with the tempest of far-reaching geopolitical consequences that raged as a result of the president’s disclosure, fresh blood was spilled in his long-running combative relationship with the nation’s clandestine services. Israel—as well as America’s other allies—would rethink its willingness to share raw intelligence, and pretty much the entire Free World was left shaking its collective head in bewilderment as it wondered, not for the first time, what was going on with Trump and Russia. (In fact, Trump’s disturbing choice to hand over highly sensitive intelligence to the Russians is now a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s relationship with Russia, both before and after the election.) In the hand-wringing aftermath, the entire event became, as is so often the case with spy stories, a tale about trust and betrayal.

Read more: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/trump-intel-slip

America's betrayal of innocence

We Backed Their Oppression, Now Deny Them Refuge

President Donald Trump has tied his executive order giving Congress six months to “fix” DACA to constructing a wall between the US and Mexico as well as a rapid and massive deportation of unaccompanied children and families entering the US without a visa.

Trump claims this will stop Central American and other undocumented immigrants from entering the United States. These policies might make it more difficult, but they will not stop the flow of migration because the United States is not the pull factor of migration. Violence in Central American countries is the push factor today, just as it was in the late 20th century.

For much of the 20th century, the US has made strategic decisions that have brought great harm to Central Americans — siding with dictators in the 1980s as our Cold War proxy to “fight communism,” and siding with corrupt national governments in the 21st century to “fight drug traffickers.”

Read more: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/supported-dictators-now-deny-refuge/

Monday's Ride - Aboard TEAL - A Restored Alaskan Patrol Boat

Corruption and insanity reign supreme in the conservative world of politics

Hamilton Police Are Now Investigating Patrick Brown’s Ontario PCs Following Allegations of Voter Fraud

The criminal probe comes as Tory loyalists allege vote rigging in more than a dozen ridings across Ontario

Hamilton police have officially authorized a criminal probe investigating allegations of vote rigging and ballot-stuffing at a contested Progressive Conservative nomination meeting last spring.

Vikram Singh, a Hamilton lawyer and the runner-up for the Ontario PC nomination in the riding, filed a complaint with police after launching a civil lawsuit against the party, alleging party officials rigged the vote through the “wrongful insertion of false ballots.”

As PressProgress reported in August, Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas is one of more than a dozen PC riding associations mired by reports of voting irregularities.

Read more: http://pressprogress.ca/hamilton-police-are-now-investigating-patrick-browns-ontario-pcs-following-allegations-of-voter-fraud/

Bimbo's in blue

IBM Canada points finger at Conservatives over Phoenix payroll training: CBC

Who’s to blame for the continuing foul-up of the federal government’s Phoenix payroll system? With both Conservative and Liberal governments involved there’s lots of finger-pointing.

The latest is a report from CBC News that project contractor IBM Canada is refusing to be the target. “Responsibility for training design and execution was transferred to the Crown in March 2014,” the broadcaster quotes IBM spokeswoman Carrie Bendzsa as saying. The current government has admitted that a lack of sufficient training for government staff on the system, which went live earlier this spring, was at least partly to blame for the chaos.

In July, when news broke, more than 80,000 of the 300,000 federal public servants were underpaid, while 720 new employees and students hadn’t seen paid at all since Phoenix went live in February.

Read more: https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/ibm-canada-points-finger-at-conservatives-over-phoenix-payroll-training-cbc/386848

What is wrong with this picture

Lets not forget that Jim Flaherty and the Harper Regime told Canadians that THEY were not saving enough while their financiers and puppet masters were shafting their employees.

I know it is not just the CPC however it is they who tried to change the conversation and place the blame on workers.

Why did the Ontario Lottery give loyal players of Crossword the shaft????

Yes folks the OLG is using you and abusing you once again. Their justification..... "the payout odds remain the same".

BULLSHIT

While overall odds remain the same your odds of winning 100 dollars, 5000 dollars, 10,000 dollars or 25,000 dollars has been reduced dramatically...... check out the numbers below..... we, as loyal players are being screwed

CROSSWORD

PRICE

GAME NUMBER

PRIZE AMOUNT

TOTAL

UNCLAIMED

$3

3216

$50,000.00

10

3

$3

3216

$25,000.00

10

0

$3

3216

$10,000.00

10

0

$3

3216

$5,000.00

10

0

$3

3216

$100.00

10531

602

$3

3218

$50,000.00

10

7

$3

3218

$25,000.00

4

1

$3

3218

$10,000.00

4

3

$3

3218

$5,000.00

4

3

$3

3218

$100.00

3778

1812

Snowball fight GOTCHA

Thanks Kerry

A beer with friends

Thanks Ivan

Michael Kobrin - Roads (Official Release)

Sunday's Ride - Tiger Moth biplane aerobatics

Union conspiracy

After months of partisan uproar over Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s alleged conflict-of-interest issues, we may finally be getting to the heart of the matter. Turns out the campaign to bring down the minister really has nothing to do with whether he was in breach of federal conflict rules when he introduced legislation to reform federal pension legislation. The real issue is that Morneau introduced legislation to reform federal pension legislation.

That the conflict-of-interest allegations are a fabricated front for a union drive to kill the legislation became all too clear Monday when The Globe and Mail published a story outlining how the Canada Post Pension Advisory Council had delivered a letter back in September to Parliament’s ethics watchdog warning that Morneau could be in a conflict of interest because he was “spearheading” legislation that would “benefit his family firm.”

Terence Corcoran: Now we know Bill Morneau’s ‘conflicts’ were concocted by union activists

It turns out the campaign to bring down Bill Morneau has nothing to do with conflict of interest rules

Read more: http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/terence-corcoran-now-we-know-bill-morneaus-conflicts-were-concocted-by-union-activists

Promising cancer discovery

Canadian PhD student makes groundbreaking cancer discovery

A PhD candidate at Queen’s University has discovered a novel DNA binder that could “switch off” cancer cells and prevent them from spreading.

Through screening numerous chemical compounds, Caitlin Miron, 28, identified one compound that binds to a four-strand DNA structure called a guanine quadruplex that’s associated with cancer and other diseased cells. The compound could be effective in targeting cancer cells and prevent their growth and metastasis. It could also be applied to other diseases including HIV.

“It’s incredibly exciting because researchers have been trying to identify DNA binders with properties like this one for more than two decades,” Miron said in a statement. “It’s so new, we’ve had to devise our own techniques for analysing and testing it.”

Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/3874569/canadian-student-cancer-discovery/?utm_source=GlobalNews&utm_medium=Facebook

Can your dog do this?

Thanks Ralph

Mama's Bible

Four brothers left home for college, and they became successful doctors and lawyers.

One evening, they chatted after having dinner together.  They discussed the 75th birthday gifts they were able to give their elderly mother who moved to Florida.The first said, "You know I had a big house built for Mama."The second said, “And I had a large theater built in the house."The third said, "And I had my Mercedes dealer deliver an SL600 to her."The fourth said, "You know how Mama loved reading the Bible and you know she can't read anymore because she can't see very well. I met this preacher who told me about a parrot who could recite the entire Bible. It took ten preachers almost 8 years to teach him. I had to pledge to contribute $50,000 a year for five years to the church, but it was worth it. Mama only has to name the chapter and verse, and the parrot will recite it."The other brothers were impressed.After the celebration Mama sent out her “Thank You” notes.  She wrote Milton, the house you built is so huge that I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house. Thanks anyway.""Marvin, I am too old to travel. I stay home; I have my groceries delivered, so I never use the Mercedes. The thought was good. Thanks..""Michael, you gave me an expensive theater with Dolby sound and it can hold 50 people, but all of my friends are dead, I've lost my hearing, and I’m nearly blind. I'll never use it. Thank you for the gesture just the same.""Dearest Melvin, you were the only son to have the good sense to give a little thought to your gift.  The chicken was delicious.  Thank you so much.

Religious Cartoons

Thanks Randy

Saturday's Ride - 1936 Wooden Classic Motor Cruiser - EUR 35,000

He should be sent to keep Hitler company

Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer banned from 26 European countries for attempting to attend pro-white rally in Poland

White Nationalist Richard Spencer has been banned from 26 European countries for five years, the Polish news site Niezalenzna reported Monday.

Spencer has been banned from the entire Schengen Area, which compromises twenty-two of the twenty-eight European Union member states, with four more legally obligated to join.

The ban followed Spencer’s attempt to visit Warsaw for racist march earlier this month.

In 2014, Spencer was banned from the Schengen Area for three years following his attempt to host a white nationalist conference in Hungary, the Southern Poverty Law Center noted.

Europe isn’t the only place Spencer has found he is unwelcome.

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/neo-nazi-richard-spencer-banned-from-26-european-countries-for-attempting-to-attend-pro-white-rally-in-poland/

MVI_3406.AVI By Jimmy Ferris Spur Texas

Thanks Randy

No Nativity Scene in Ottawa this year!

The Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a Nativity Scene on

Parliament Hill this Christmas season.  This isn't for any religious reason.

They simply have not been able to find Three Wise Men in the Nation’s

Capital. A search for a Virgin continues. 

There was no problem, however, finding enough asses to fill the stable.

Thanks Shirley

From Coolopolis

with maps that are from the past to the present

http://coolopolis.blogspot.ca/ 2017/11/amazing-montreal- website-allows-you-to.html

Thanks Ivan

tomorrow

Thanks Norman..... I almost forgot

Brave Pet Cat Stands Up To Mountain Lion - Cute Cats VS Mountain Lion

Thanks Sylvia

Friday's Ride - Polaris Slingshot SL Video Review 2015 ~ Can Am 3 Wheel Motorcycle Trike

The Russians have arrived in America and Trump opened the door

Rachel Maddow Just Blew the Latest Russia Stunner Wide Open: Who Would Have Thought that Betsy DeVos Was Right in the Middle of It

Folks, Maddow just blew this story wide open. And it’s huge.

Billionaire brother of Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, is Erik Prince. Erik not only represents his family as one of many hard-right, social-conservative activists who have poured millions and millions into organizations and people who would push a far-right agenda. He also is the founder of Blackwater – a company the United States has hired in an attempt to privatize some of the war in Iraq. They represent how people can make money by turning war into a for-profit enterprise

You might recall Blackwater – several contractors were convicted of killing seventeen unarmed Iraqi civilians. The company was forced to rebrand itself several times, attempting to created much-needed distance from the typical Blackwater Google search. Prince moved his family to an obscure place, and Erik largely fell out of the public’s mind.

That’s when things got really interesting, Maddow explains. You see, Prince was far from public view, but he was, however, strongly in the sights of Team Trump. Right before the election, Steve Bannon’s Breitbart Newspublished a bombshell story, in which Erik Prince is credited with saying the police were on the verge of arresting Hillary Clinton as a complicit figure in a money laundering/child-sex ring. Prince also claimed that the Obama Justice Department was working hard to cover up the story, but according to Prince’s sources, arrests were “imminent.”

The accusations were so severe, that the report claimed that Hillary frequented a secret “sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.” It further suggested that Hillary was guilty of murder.

Maddow starts putting the pieces together.

Read more: http://theproudliberal.org/rachel-maddow-just-blew-the-latest-russia-stunner-wide-open-who-would-have-thought-that-betsy-devos-was-right-in-the-middle-of-it/