100% prescribe to the theory that climate change money should have been put towards meaningful/useful projects - my go to’s are public transit, and renewable energy sources on every parkade, strip mall, industrial complex and suitable public building. Solar, sure… but can I show you something in a vertical wind turbine? Have them run fans and air conditioners in cooling centres and seniors complexes, charge up some eBuses and ambulances. Fund storage solutions for these intermittent energy sources. Or build anti-flood berms, or ( actually ) plant trees, or finally do some feckin railroad spurs/twinning. If the money had been spent well, I think many would’ve been more accepting… and we’d have something to show for our efforts. Our minuscule drop in emissions changes nothing in a global system.
Carbon tax proponents point to Sweden’s 30 year old tax as a success story as emissions have dropped while the economy has grown. But Sweden’s carbon tax goes into general revenues and helps fund decarbonization of electricity and industry. There is no revenue neutral rebate.
Individual citizens cannot decarbonize a power plant or a steel foundry through their consumer choices. It takes direct government funding and regulation to transform the entire energy system. I think people understand this in their gut, which is why this has been such a political disaster. The economists really need to sit down and ponder why their models of human behaviour are so wrong.
The guy who shot Trump increasingly looks like he does *not* fit the "political fanatic" psych profile, but instead the "school shooter" psych profile, which is to say a complete loser with no particularly intense or well-developed beliefs who attempted to burn the village down to feel its warmth.
He apparently googled the itineraries of multiple politicians in the days leading up to the shooting, left and right, including Biden, and may have chosen Trump simply because Trump happened to have been holding a rally closest to the shooter's home.
If you were a Republican strategist and you could wave a magic wand, you're saying you wouldn't wave it to make the shooter a registered Dem with a social media profile filled with painfully stereotypical Resist Lib content?
Before I even listen I must express my bewilderment that a convicted felon cannot own a gun, be a teacher, cross international borders, but, BUT, can be the president of the Unitec States of America. How can that possibly be so?
I will say this. The Democrats are going to regret stretching the law to try and charge Trump. The Stormy Daniels case was ridiculous and I’n saying this as a guy who dislikes Trump.
Like the old line, mustard gas is a great idea until the wind changes. Corruption is wide spread through both parties. Expect prominent Democrats to be pulled in front of the courts and to start complaining about politically motivated prosecutions. They should have never crossed that Rubicon.
Trump was convicted by a jury of his peers, a jury in which he had a role in vetting, in a trial where he declined to give his own testimony, and after he had violated various gag orders with minimal consequence, within the same country where the justice system also targeted and convicted the incumbent President's son for a non-violent crime. These facts shouldn't need to be repeated, but apparently they do.
Yes he was convicted. My point was that it is highly questionable if it was actually a crime. This was some very loose reading of both state and federal statutes and has never been done before. Wait until the appeals courts review. It is likely it won’t pass scrutiny.
The falsified business records being a misdemeanour crime didn't seem overly questionable, but the theory used to argue it was a felony was highly questionable/novel. Additionally, the whole process for bringing charges just looked political - even if legal, it's not a great look (similar to Hunter Biden).
There are numerous very strong cases that Trump has spent millions to avoid. That the US legal system can be so easily paralysed marks it as a complete and total failure considering the seriousness of the charges.
If you listen to more serious American legal commentators and experts in New York law, the fraud trial was actually firmly grounded in precedent and law. The real scandal is that the legal system did so little to hold Trump to account for his misdeeds in the past.
I love the infrastructure idea. My biggest beef with a carpet attacks is that there are no options for most Canadians to reduce their carbon use. They are just penalized and get a rebate.
My only concern is that there is no evidence of this country infrastructure. When it takes Ottawa the same amount of time to build 10 km of broken as it took Canada 1970 to build CPR when heavy machinery didn’t exist, I’m not confident that we were up for the challenge.
Not directly responding to any of the Podcast arguments, but here is some interesting new data to keep in mind for the Canadian politics discussion: 84% of Canadians can identify Jagmeet Singh by name, 66% of Canadians can identify Pierre Poilievre by name, and 47% of Canadians can identify Elizabeth May by name: https://abacusdata.ca/recognize-political-leaders-canada-abacus-data-poll/
Meanwhile, only 39% of Canadians can identify Chrystia Freeland by name, and only 7% of Canadians recognize Mark Carney by name.
Anyone who cannot identify PP et al by name is a low propensity voter and doesn't matter for the purposes of election predictions, fwiw. JG. The low recognition for Carney is genuinely interesting.
G&G: many of us are actually here for the commentary on Canadian politics. Don’t apologize for belabouring it. Feel free to apologize for the excessive Trump tangents and boomer comments about a dude who’s not even a boomer. PS it’s the gen x dude at the helm who is ruining Canada.
Matt and Jen; you both have a dorky sense of humour. I didn’t get Matt’s “Garumba” references, and didn’t follow Jen’s reference to “Tulips?” this week. About half the time I am just not on the same page as you two.
In particular, I’d like you to focus on the facts a little more when referring to climate change. For instance, in this weeks podcast your casual reference to climate change causing more wildfires is mostly fact free. Sure, people have reason to be concerned, given that last year was by far the worst year on record, but the data don’t show that the area burned is increasing.
In fact, the data don’t show a trend. I offer two fact checks from Natural Resources Canada showing wildfires are not increasing. Check the graph called “Number of Fires and Area Burned in Canada by Year” on this page…. https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/ha/nfdb and secondly, the graph called “Cumulative area burned in Canada by year estimated from satellite hotspots” on this page… https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fm3?type=arpt&year=2023
On a positive note, I wholeheartedly agree with you that we need to be focusing on maintaining infrastructure and am glad you have discussed this problem many times. My major point is that if we miss-label “Bad Weather” as “Climate Change” we will make bad decisions, such as subsidizing EV battery plants and “investing” in green hydrogen with investment tax credits.
I think you both would benefit from reading these authors; Steven Koonin, Bjorn Lomborg, Vaclac Smil, and Roger Pielke Jr. All these authors talk about making smart fact full decisions. I would be so pleased if you could turn a critical eye towards climate change alarmism in the same manner which you have taken on the federal journalism subsidies!
As much as I disagree with you, I have gained much insight into topics outside of my wheelhouse. For instance, the recent discussion of Mark Carny opened my eyes to why Trudeau is talking about him. Your articles on defence spending are very good. Also, being a former Calgarian, Matt’s opinions on the perennial miss-treatment of Alberta by the federal government make me understand Ontarians a little better.
That said, I still secretly wish a little vengeance on the Laurentian Elites via Gretchen Witmar shutting down Line 5, at least for a week or two.
Lastly, I’m more than a little embarrassed that I didn’t understand “Garumba” and expect that I will soon feel the same about “Tulips”.
Until it's proven otherwise, there is no reason to believe that Trump didn't have his ear cut by shards of glass from his teleprompter. That the media is ignoring is disgusting, but the US media is a complete failure where trump is concerned. Buy that no doctor has been paraded out with details of the gunshot wound, I consider the bullet wound pure political bullshit.
If Trump becomes president again. Canada is well and truly fucked. We will do whatever the US tells us or face massive economic consequences regardless of whether its good for us. No dictator in history has had the economic power that Trump will wield. Freedom in the US will go through a pro-Trump filter. When you control the courts, you can do whatever you want. The Constitution is gone. Look what Orban has done in Hungary, and apply that to the US. When you announce you're replacing 50000 civil servants with loyalists, it's pretty clear that a dictatorship follows. My only hope is that women who have looked at Project 2025 will turn out in unimageable numbers and save the country. It's a small hope. And when it happens, they will all be like Brexiters....."I didn't think he was going to do that". My only hope is when he no longer needs them, he turns on the churches and taxes them as they're a huge revenue source that will allow him to lower taxes for billionaires even more. Betrayal is a cornerstone of people he no longer needs. And yes, he will pull the US out of NATO.
Because one is a potentially hell of a lot more damaging than the other, not to mention the idiot propaganda of poor bleeding Trump getting up, showing his fist and saying "fight'. It's a massive difference is danger if you get knicked by a bullet or cut by glass where the bullet missed by 2 feet. Even you basically suggested that got him the presidency. The media has completely ignored the wound and taken Trump at his word. What kind of idiot still takes Trump at his word?
There’s a photo showing the bullet passing Trump’s ear. Please drop the silly conspiracy theory stuff about it actually being shattered teleprompter glass. When you fluff the easy stuff, it makes you less credible about the important, hard problems of Trump. https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/14/politics/video/doug-mills-trump-rally-photo-src-digvid
The bright side of Trump is that he bumps in an approval ceiling of about 45% in the US. He’s not an unstoppable demagogue. The problem is that up to 45% of US voters either don’t perceive the problems Trump poses, don’t care, or actually see them as features. That’s a populist trend that does flow into Canada, and the problem is it’s anti-elite to the point of being anti-expertise. I’m not thrilled at the prospect of swapping current Liberal ignorance and incompetence for a Conservative populist flavor.
On Biden stepping down as candidate but staying on as president: I don't think it will be a big problem. As Jen suggested, the media is likely to lose interest with the firm end date, and despite Biden's clear decline in his communication abilities, I haven't seen anything that makes me worry he's going to nuke the wrong country or whatever.
Other Democrats can simply say "I still believe Biden has the judgment to do the job of president, but it was clear that questions about his age were becoming a distraction, when what we need to be discussing are the dangers of a second Trump presidency, for example ... [subject changed]"
And with FMJ, there's no expansion, nor the nasty tumble you see from Russian rounds.
The goal wasn't to kill. It was to get two of his friends to carry him to a triage, thus taking 3 off the field, while allowing the NATO fellas to carry enough of the lighter rounds to get through the engagement with some to spare.
Pretty sure the Americans have decided on 6.8, so maybe the rest of us can move up too.
100% prescribe to the theory that climate change money should have been put towards meaningful/useful projects - my go to’s are public transit, and renewable energy sources on every parkade, strip mall, industrial complex and suitable public building. Solar, sure… but can I show you something in a vertical wind turbine? Have them run fans and air conditioners in cooling centres and seniors complexes, charge up some eBuses and ambulances. Fund storage solutions for these intermittent energy sources. Or build anti-flood berms, or ( actually ) plant trees, or finally do some feckin railroad spurs/twinning. If the money had been spent well, I think many would’ve been more accepting… and we’d have something to show for our efforts. Our minuscule drop in emissions changes nothing in a global system.
Carbon tax proponents point to Sweden’s 30 year old tax as a success story as emissions have dropped while the economy has grown. But Sweden’s carbon tax goes into general revenues and helps fund decarbonization of electricity and industry. There is no revenue neutral rebate.
Individual citizens cannot decarbonize a power plant or a steel foundry through their consumer choices. It takes direct government funding and regulation to transform the entire energy system. I think people understand this in their gut, which is why this has been such a political disaster. The economists really need to sit down and ponder why their models of human behaviour are so wrong.
Afuera! I was right there for it.
The guy who shot Trump increasingly looks like he does *not* fit the "political fanatic" psych profile, but instead the "school shooter" psych profile, which is to say a complete loser with no particularly intense or well-developed beliefs who attempted to burn the village down to feel its warmth.
He apparently googled the itineraries of multiple politicians in the days leading up to the shooting, left and right, including Biden, and may have chosen Trump simply because Trump happened to have been holding a rally closest to the shooter's home.
None of that will make any difference. JG
If you were a Republican strategist and you could wave a magic wand, you're saying you wouldn't wave it to make the shooter a registered Dem with a social media profile filled with painfully stereotypical Resist Lib content?
Before I even listen I must express my bewilderment that a convicted felon cannot own a gun, be a teacher, cross international borders, but, BUT, can be the president of the Unitec States of America. How can that possibly be so?
I will say this. The Democrats are going to regret stretching the law to try and charge Trump. The Stormy Daniels case was ridiculous and I’n saying this as a guy who dislikes Trump.
Like the old line, mustard gas is a great idea until the wind changes. Corruption is wide spread through both parties. Expect prominent Democrats to be pulled in front of the courts and to start complaining about politically motivated prosecutions. They should have never crossed that Rubicon.
Trump was convicted by a jury of his peers, a jury in which he had a role in vetting, in a trial where he declined to give his own testimony, and after he had violated various gag orders with minimal consequence, within the same country where the justice system also targeted and convicted the incumbent President's son for a non-violent crime. These facts shouldn't need to be repeated, but apparently they do.
Yes he was convicted. My point was that it is highly questionable if it was actually a crime. This was some very loose reading of both state and federal statutes and has never been done before. Wait until the appeals courts review. It is likely it won’t pass scrutiny.
The falsified business records being a misdemeanour crime didn't seem overly questionable, but the theory used to argue it was a felony was highly questionable/novel. Additionally, the whole process for bringing charges just looked political - even if legal, it's not a great look (similar to Hunter Biden).
That’s exactly it. If you are going to “go after the king,” it better be a strong case.
There are numerous very strong cases that Trump has spent millions to avoid. That the US legal system can be so easily paralysed marks it as a complete and total failure considering the seriousness of the charges.
They didn't. Suggesting so is ignorant, naïve bullshit. The GOP forced Nixon out, when laws mattered in the US. They do not matter to the GOP.
If you listen to more serious American legal commentators and experts in New York law, the fraud trial was actually firmly grounded in precedent and law. The real scandal is that the legal system did so little to hold Trump to account for his misdeeds in the past.
Indeed, if you’re listening to Democrat or leftist legal commentators.
Its state politics, people love a good fight for their own election chances, not the national election.
I love the infrastructure idea. My biggest beef with a carpet attacks is that there are no options for most Canadians to reduce their carbon use. They are just penalized and get a rebate.
My only concern is that there is no evidence of this country infrastructure. When it takes Ottawa the same amount of time to build 10 km of broken as it took Canada 1970 to build CPR when heavy machinery didn’t exist, I’m not confident that we were up for the challenge.
Not directly responding to any of the Podcast arguments, but here is some interesting new data to keep in mind for the Canadian politics discussion: 84% of Canadians can identify Jagmeet Singh by name, 66% of Canadians can identify Pierre Poilievre by name, and 47% of Canadians can identify Elizabeth May by name: https://abacusdata.ca/recognize-political-leaders-canada-abacus-data-poll/
Meanwhile, only 39% of Canadians can identify Chrystia Freeland by name, and only 7% of Canadians recognize Mark Carney by name.
Anyone who cannot identify PP et al by name is a low propensity voter and doesn't matter for the purposes of election predictions, fwiw. JG. The low recognition for Carney is genuinely interesting.
It’s wrong for a politician to be happy/relieved that an active shooter is dead? How else does one stop an active shooter?
G&G: many of us are actually here for the commentary on Canadian politics. Don’t apologize for belabouring it. Feel free to apologize for the excessive Trump tangents and boomer comments about a dude who’s not even a boomer. PS it’s the gen x dude at the helm who is ruining Canada.
Matt and Jen; you both have a dorky sense of humour. I didn’t get Matt’s “Garumba” references, and didn’t follow Jen’s reference to “Tulips?” this week. About half the time I am just not on the same page as you two.
In particular, I’d like you to focus on the facts a little more when referring to climate change. For instance, in this weeks podcast your casual reference to climate change causing more wildfires is mostly fact free. Sure, people have reason to be concerned, given that last year was by far the worst year on record, but the data don’t show that the area burned is increasing.
In fact, the data don’t show a trend. I offer two fact checks from Natural Resources Canada showing wildfires are not increasing. Check the graph called “Number of Fires and Area Burned in Canada by Year” on this page…. https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/ha/nfdb and secondly, the graph called “Cumulative area burned in Canada by year estimated from satellite hotspots” on this page… https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fm3?type=arpt&year=2023
On a positive note, I wholeheartedly agree with you that we need to be focusing on maintaining infrastructure and am glad you have discussed this problem many times. My major point is that if we miss-label “Bad Weather” as “Climate Change” we will make bad decisions, such as subsidizing EV battery plants and “investing” in green hydrogen with investment tax credits.
I think you both would benefit from reading these authors; Steven Koonin, Bjorn Lomborg, Vaclac Smil, and Roger Pielke Jr. All these authors talk about making smart fact full decisions. I would be so pleased if you could turn a critical eye towards climate change alarmism in the same manner which you have taken on the federal journalism subsidies!
As much as I disagree with you, I have gained much insight into topics outside of my wheelhouse. For instance, the recent discussion of Mark Carny opened my eyes to why Trudeau is talking about him. Your articles on defence spending are very good. Also, being a former Calgarian, Matt’s opinions on the perennial miss-treatment of Alberta by the federal government make me understand Ontarians a little better.
That said, I still secretly wish a little vengeance on the Laurentian Elites via Gretchen Witmar shutting down Line 5, at least for a week or two.
Lastly, I’m more than a little embarrassed that I didn’t understand “Garumba” and expect that I will soon feel the same about “Tulips”.
Until it's proven otherwise, there is no reason to believe that Trump didn't have his ear cut by shards of glass from his teleprompter. That the media is ignoring is disgusting, but the US media is a complete failure where trump is concerned. Buy that no doctor has been paraded out with details of the gunshot wound, I consider the bullet wound pure political bullshit.
If Trump becomes president again. Canada is well and truly fucked. We will do whatever the US tells us or face massive economic consequences regardless of whether its good for us. No dictator in history has had the economic power that Trump will wield. Freedom in the US will go through a pro-Trump filter. When you control the courts, you can do whatever you want. The Constitution is gone. Look what Orban has done in Hungary, and apply that to the US. When you announce you're replacing 50000 civil servants with loyalists, it's pretty clear that a dictatorship follows. My only hope is that women who have looked at Project 2025 will turn out in unimageable numbers and save the country. It's a small hope. And when it happens, they will all be like Brexiters....."I didn't think he was going to do that". My only hope is when he no longer needs them, he turns on the churches and taxes them as they're a huge revenue source that will allow him to lower taxes for billionaires even more. Betrayal is a cornerstone of people he no longer needs. And yes, he will pull the US out of NATO.
Whether his ear was grazed by glass or a by a bullet -- who cares? How is that relevant to any actual political analysis? JG
Because one is a potentially hell of a lot more damaging than the other, not to mention the idiot propaganda of poor bleeding Trump getting up, showing his fist and saying "fight'. It's a massive difference is danger if you get knicked by a bullet or cut by glass where the bullet missed by 2 feet. Even you basically suggested that got him the presidency. The media has completely ignored the wound and taken Trump at his word. What kind of idiot still takes Trump at his word?
There’s a photo showing the bullet passing Trump’s ear. Please drop the silly conspiracy theory stuff about it actually being shattered teleprompter glass. When you fluff the easy stuff, it makes you less credible about the important, hard problems of Trump. https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/14/politics/video/doug-mills-trump-rally-photo-src-digvid
Be serious. That photo is not proof of anything. I didn't say he wasn't hit by something. The Zapruder film is evidence of a bullet hitting someone.
I am spectacularly unsure why you believe this matters.
It doesn't. It was a response to the opening of the podcast, and a response to George's comment. What Trump will do to Canada is the exact opposite.
¡Fuera! ¡Fuera! ¡Fuera!
The bright side of Trump is that he bumps in an approval ceiling of about 45% in the US. He’s not an unstoppable demagogue. The problem is that up to 45% of US voters either don’t perceive the problems Trump poses, don’t care, or actually see them as features. That’s a populist trend that does flow into Canada, and the problem is it’s anti-elite to the point of being anti-expertise. I’m not thrilled at the prospect of swapping current Liberal ignorance and incompetence for a Conservative populist flavor.
Carbon tax. Sorry. Voice dictation sucks.
I think “carpet attacks” is my new favourite phrase!
On Biden stepping down as candidate but staying on as president: I don't think it will be a big problem. As Jen suggested, the media is likely to lose interest with the firm end date, and despite Biden's clear decline in his communication abilities, I haven't seen anything that makes me worry he's going to nuke the wrong country or whatever.
Other Democrats can simply say "I still believe Biden has the judgment to do the job of president, but it was clear that questions about his age were becoming a distraction, when what we need to be discussing are the dangers of a second Trump presidency, for example ... [subject changed]"
6 or 7 hits out of 10 at 130m? You need more time at the range, man.
(Still not an endorsement of political violence)
I absolutely need more time. That was my first time at a range in literally years (since before Covid) and it was a new rifle, in fairness.
I really miss my FNC1. Fantastic at distance and real punch with 7.62, not these beebees they use now. 5.56?
And with FMJ, there's no expansion, nor the nasty tumble you see from Russian rounds.
The goal wasn't to kill. It was to get two of his friends to carry him to a triage, thus taking 3 off the field, while allowing the NATO fellas to carry enough of the lighter rounds to get through the engagement with some to spare.
Pretty sure the Americans have decided on 6.8, so maybe the rest of us can move up too.
The right arm of the free world...