Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Trump is either a liar or he hasn't got a clue what was discussed with the EU
Trump Boasted To Farmers He Opened European Market. Europe: No, He Didn't.
Other than soybeans, agricultural products are off the table, the European Commission says.
President Donald Trump said in Iowa on Thursday that he just opened up the European market to U.S. farmers. One problem: Europe disagrees.
“We’re opening things up,” Trump said in Dubuque (video above). “But the biggest one of all happened yesterday ... the EU .... We just opened up Europe for you farmers. You’re not going to be too angry with Trump, I can tell you. You were essentially restricted. You had barriers that really made it impossible for farm products to go in ... you have just gotten yourself one big market that really essentially never existed.”
The European Union’s take was very different.
“On agriculture, I think we’ve been very clear on that — that agriculture is out of the scope of these discussions,” European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva told reporters in Brussels on Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Other than what is “explicitly mentioned” in the agreement, “we are not negotiating about agricultural products,” she said.
“When you read the joint statement ... you will see no mention of agriculture as such; you will see a mention of farmers and a mention of soybeans, which are part of the discussions, and we will follow up [on] that,” Andreeva added.
More bulldung from Trump
AP FACT CHECK: Trump falsely claims historic turnaround
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump falsely claimed he's pulled off "an economic turnaround of historic proportions."
Speaking at the White House Friday after the government reported that the economy grew at an annual rate of 4.1 percent in the second quarter, Trump declared that the gains were sustainable and would only accelerate. Few economists outside the administration agree with this claim.
His remarks followed events Thursday in Iowa and Illinois, where Trump falsely repeated a claim that the U.S. economy is the best "we've ever had" and incorrectly asserted that Canada's trade market is "totally closed."
A look at the claims:
TRUMP: "We've accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions." — remarks Friday at the White House.
THE FACTS: Trump didn't inherit a fixer-upper economy.
The U.S. economy just entered its 10th year of growth, a recovery that began under President Barack Obama, who inherited the Great Recession. The data show that the falling unemployment rate and gains in home values reflect the duration of the recovery, rather than any major changes made since 2017 by the Trump administration.
While Trump praised the 4.1 percent annual growth rate in the second quarter, it exceeded that level four times during the Obama presidency. But quarterly figures are volatile and strength in one quarter can be reversed in the next. While Obama never achieved the 3 percent annual growth that Trump hopes to see, he came close. The economy grew 2.9 percent in 2015.
The economy faces two significant structural drags that could keep growth closer to 2 percent than 3 percent: an aging population, which means fewer people are working and more are retired, and weak productivity growth, which means that those who are working aren't increasing their output as quickly as in the past.
Both of those factors are largely beyond Trump's control.
Monday, July 30, 2018
Excellent explanation of Fords stupidity on the issue of GHG
Globe editorial: Ontario says it will cut emissions without a carbon tax. But how?
Ontario’s new Progressive Conservative government kept a key election promise on Wednesday when it introduced legislation to kill the province’s cap-and-trade carbon-reduction program. It’s not clear yet when the bill will be passed or how much it will cost, but the point is that Ontario is getting out of the carbon-pricing business.
At the same time, Environment Minister Rod Phillips says the government will set targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and report on the progress it makes. He hasn’t said what mechanisms Ontario will use to lower emissions but, having rejected direct carbon pricing, that basically leaves regulations and subsidies as options.
So what will that mean for Ontarians? Based on the government’s actions to date, it won’t mean subsidies for purchasing electric or hydrogen-powered cars, or rebates for making homes and businesses more energy efficient, or investments in renewable resources such as wind and solar. All of those things exist in Ontario but were funded by the revenues from the doomed cap-and-trade scheme, and the government is cancelling them as a consequence.
The government could instead set sector-specific emission caps for industrial polluters and fine them when they go over their limits. But that is, in essence, what cap-and-trade did, so it would make little sense to recreate a price on carbon in the form of a financial penalty.
The voters were warned that Ford would dismantle Ontario
The human wrecking ball of Ontario politics
There he goes again, Premier Doug Ford, the human wrecking ball, the Steve Bannon of Ontario, saying all disruption is good, chaos is cleansing, and the rules of democracy are contemptible.
He is slicing city council in half, midelection campaign, to save, he claims, $25 million. His strategy is clear. Long may the Toronto elites wither while sewer pipes collapse and water comes out of the taps red and already coagulating. The only infrastructure we’ll have left is gullies. This is Ford’s mad dream. Blood moon eclipse! Government deconstruction!
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Saturday, July 28, 2018
The facts and just the facts about Harpers incompetence
It turns out the emperor has no clothes after all.
Although Conservatives like to drone on like robots about how Stephen Harper is a “steady hand on the wheel” of the economy, that myth is increasingly hard to square with reality.
Not only does a recent poll suggest Harper’s reputation as a competent manager of the economy has plummeted, a new analysis shows Harper with the worst economic record of any Canadian Prime Minister since the end of the Second World War.
6 charts show Stephen Harper has the worst economic record of any Prime Minister since World War II
Friday, July 27, 2018
More absurdity from the Trump administration - subsidies
Trump plans to give billions in aid to farmers hurt by tariffs
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is preparing a plan to provide billions of dollars in emergency aid to farmers who have been hurt by tariffs. That’s according to two people who have been briefed on the plan who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement.
The Agriculture Department was expected to announce the plan later Tuesday.
Jeffery Poulin on Twitter
I knew this would happen, before the election closed. I knew he would come for us. He will kill the progressive vote, pitting neighbor against neighbor. Fight it, tomorrow Friday 27th, Queen's Park, 6:00 PM
Link: https://twitter.com/JeffreyEPoulin/status/1022689866105151488
Link: https://twitter.com/JeffreyEPoulin/status/1022689866105151488
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Ontario fubared by Doug Ford
Cancellation of German-owned Ontario wind project prompts warning from Berlin
Ontario’s move to cancel the contract of a German-owned wind energy project represents a black mark for the province in the eyes of foreign investors, Berlin’s ambassador to Canada, Sabine Sparwasser, warned Monday.
The German government and multinational companies have taken note of Premier Doug Ford’s decision to pull the plug on wpd AG’s White Pines wind project in Prince Edward County, as well as the bill now before the legislature that will allow the province to set limits on what compensation is provided, Ms. Sparwasser said in a telephone interview.
“Obviously, every incoming government has the right to change policy direction,” she said. “But to have a unilateral cancellation pushed through by law that way is unsettling for the company, but is also something that will unsettle other potential investors."
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Trumponomics
To Ease Pain of Trump’s Trade War: $12 Billion in Aid for Farmers
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Tuesday announced up to $12 billion in emergency relief for farmers hurt by the president’s trade war, moving to insulate food producers from looming financial losses that would be a direct result of President Trump’s policies.
The aid to farmers, announced by the United States Department of Agriculture, will come through a direct assistance program, one designed to help with food purchase and distribution and one specifically geared toward promoting trade.
The move is an indication that Mr. Trump — ignoring the concerns of farmers, their representatives in Congress, and even some of his own aides about the adverse consequences of a trade war he says he relishes — plans to plow forward in escalating his tariff tit-for-tat around the world.
“The actions today are a firm statement that other nations cannot bully our agricultural producers to force the United States to cave in,” Sonny Perdue, the secretary of agriculture, said during a call with reporters to unveil the program. “This administration will not stand by while our hard-working agricultural producers bear the brunt of unfriendly and illegal tariffs.”
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/24/us/politics/farmers-aid-trade-war.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Then there is this in response
GOP: Easy prey
Russia’s Plan to Buy Off the GOP Began Before the Rise of Trump
Republicans placed an anti-patriot in the Oval Office—just as the Russians bet they would.
There is no shortage of bombshell angles to this Maria Butina matter, announced by the Justice Department on Monday just hours after Donald Trump helped make Russia great again in Helsinki.
There’s the allegation that she was trying to arrange a meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin in 2016, which the Times chose to emphasize. There’s the bit about her relationship with the National Rifle Association, and how she allegedly sought to use or work with the NRA to expand her influence in American politics (The Daily Beast was the first to report on all this in detail, back in early 2017).
There’s more. But I’ll tell you what popped out at me as I read through the affidavit filed by the FBI agent in charge of investigating her. It was in paragraph 18, bottom of page 5, stating that Butina wrote an email to “U.S. Person 1” to suggest a plan by which she would work herself into the good graces of “POLITICAL PARTY 1.” What popped out at me was the date. She wrote this email on March 24, 2015.
Why is this significant? Because Butina, being Russian and all, is normally thought of as being associated with Trump. But on March 24, 2015, Donald Trump was a private citizen. Nobody thought he was running for president (he announced his candidacy in mid-June).
In other words: Butina, working for a prominent Russian official with whom the affidavit says she conspired on all these moves, laid out this plan to her American contact to infiltrate “POLITICAL PARTY 1”—obviously, the Republican Party—before Trump was even in the picture.
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Traitorous Tories meet with Sessions behind PMO's back
Embassy caught off guard when Tory senators met with Sessions
Canada’s diplomatic mission in Washington was caught off guard by a high-profile spring trip where a trio of Tory senators met with U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other Trump administration officials to discuss cannabis legalization.
Internal emails obtained by iPolitics through Access to Information show Canada’s embassy in Washington, Global Affairs and other officials here at home only learned about the visit through press coverage, and were not contacted in advance for advice or input into the trip.
“The embassy had no visibility on this. We were neither advised nor consulted on the visit,” Adam Barratt, who deals with Canada’s relations with congress at the embassy, wrote to colleagues.
“The first we heard of it was in the La Presse article. At this point, it is a political issue, not a bureaucratic one…I would advise the minister’s office to contact PMO for further information.”
The Prime Minister’s Office and Privy Council Office had also initially asked the embassy whether it knew anything about the surprise meeting.
Conservative senators Claude Carignan, Denise Batters, and Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu travelled to Washington, D.C. in April after complaining that Liberal cabinet ministers and top officials weren’t clear in their committee testimony about how legalizing cannabis would affect border travel. Sessions is also well-known for having staunch prohibitionist views.
The CPC Sellout Treason from the West
Tory Loyalty? Ex PM secretly visits Trump while ex house leader argues for Western separation.
A new piece in the Calgary Herald by Stephen Harper’s former Conservative Party House Leader Jay Hill, following close on the heels of a secret trip to the United States by Harper himself, has raised serious national security concerns, and questions about loyalties within Canada’s Conservative Party, as the old global order is torn up by American President Donald Trump.
Harper’s Secret Trip to Trump’s Whitehouse
On the 2nd of July, Canada’s former head of government, Stephen Harper, went to the West Wing of the American White House. The incumbent of that White House, President Donald Trump, has recently instigated a trade war with Canada, caged children taken from immigrant parents, threatened to pull support from NATO, and stood with a Russian dictator against the American intelligence community.
Stephen Harper met with senior members of the Trump administration. Harper did not inform our current head of government, Justin Trudeau, or his administration that he was taking the trip. Harper did not disclose to the media or to the current government his intentions on leaving, nor what was discussed on his return. Canada’s former Prime Minister left the nation in the dark.
As Prime Minister, Harper was privy to Canada’s deepest military, economic, and security secrets. He received routine briefings on Canadian domestic and foreign operations. He has intimate knowledge of our nation’s financial and social strengths and weaknesses.
Monday, July 23, 2018
Fascism has arrived wearing a Christian mantle
America Now Has Its First Fascist President
I n 1935, the third year of Hitler’s Third Reich, Sinclair Lewis published a novel called “It Can’t Happen Here,” speculating on the possibility that fascism might come to America. This spring, the legal scholar Cass Sunstein wondered in an article titled “Can It Happen Here?” whether a native fascism might now at last be in the offing.
Note to Sinclair and Cass: it has happened here. In Donald J. Trump, America now has its first fascist president.
Denfence survey
Six Takeaways from the Defence Department's Survey of Canadians
Canada's Department of National Defence has released the results of a survey conducted by the Earnscliffe Strategy Group between February and April 2018. Here are six takeaways:
1) The second-biggest security threat to Canada is... the United States?
1) The second-biggest security threat to Canada is... the United States?
This is a striking result, especially since Canada is arguably under no greater physical threat now than it was in 2016. But I wouldn't assume that respondents were thinking about "security" in this way. The poll probably reveals, instead, a more general concern about the impact of the Trump administration on Canadian interests, including our economic interests. (After all, if you look further down the list, Donald Trump is cited as the fourth-biggest threat.) Nervousness about the US administration seems to be acute – and this poll was conducted before Trump imposed steel sanctions on Canada and the G7 summit, when he attacked Justin Trudeau
Sunday, July 22, 2018
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Killing investment
So, Doug Ford's government is passing laws that break previous contracts by putting in sections that prevent you from suing the govt. Who would want to do business with a govt that does that? #ONpoli
Link: https://twitter.com/stephenlautens/status/1018965654978740224
Comment from FB
Robin Chat By destroying wind and solar farms, feed in power systems, creating legislation prohibiting those with loses to sue for lost investments, lost future income, property losses, by undermining government contractual obligations, by eliminating thousands of jobs in green tech industries, by having increased social costs as a result of higher unemployment and future lack of investment. The economy has never been stronger. The employment rate was low, the investment high. You jest I hope. Political talking points vs reality is cheap. Tell it to all the people who had solar panels installed on their roof tops and on their properties who will now eat the cost or .... or eat the cost. That may see a class action law suit.
Link: https://twitter.com/stephenlautens/status/1018965654978740224
Comment from FB
Robin Chat By destroying wind and solar farms, feed in power systems, creating legislation prohibiting those with loses to sue for lost investments, lost future income, property losses, by undermining government contractual obligations, by eliminating thousands of jobs in green tech industries, by having increased social costs as a result of higher unemployment and future lack of investment. The economy has never been stronger. The employment rate was low, the investment high. You jest I hope. Political talking points vs reality is cheap. Tell it to all the people who had solar panels installed on their roof tops and on their properties who will now eat the cost or .... or eat the cost. That may see a class action law suit.
Friday, July 20, 2018
The small mindedness of Andrew Scheer
Scheer is ill-suited to petty, vindictive remarks about household whatnots
Canadian taxpayers are shocked, shocked to find out that Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has wasted their hard-earned money on trifles at magnificent Castle Stornoway in Ottawa. There he dwells at the expense of poor-but-honest citizens with his new coral-lined chimney and majestical roof fretted with golden fire.
For Scheer is spending what could add up to 100,000 taxpayer dollars on his free and fancy mansion, the Globe and Mail reports, though not in those words, after torching Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for buying trinkets at his official country cottage at Harrington Lake.
Stephen Lautens on twitter
Doug Ford's omnibus Bill 2 cancelling contracts will be interesting, as it sets back Crown civil liability. More interesting will be the chill on govt contracts, because there is now no such thing as a binding contract with the Ontario govt. https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-42/session-1/bill-2#BK5 … #ONpoli
Link: https://twitter.com/stephenlautens/status/1018969066642395136
Link: https://twitter.com/stephenlautens/status/1018969066642395136
Thursday, July 19, 2018
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