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Compared to most US presidents, Ike was one of the few.....maybe the only one who had the gravitas and the inside knowledge to stand up to what he later termed - The Military-Industrial Complex. He was worried about the growing power and the corruption involved in expanding Pentagon departments and making arms production a permanent fixture in US manufacturing.....rather than a sideline industry mostly for wartime. Regarding Iran, Eisenhower was trying to be pragmatic, since the US still needed the much weakened Great Britain as a military ally, and that was jeopardized after Mossadegh was elected and nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company....later called BP. Iran was the only source of oil that England had left, and if they couldn't switch from coal, then they were done as a naval power in the post-war era. Doesn't justify changing Iran's government so England could keep extracting cheap oil, but by 1953, Churchill didn't have any clout to bargain with. Worth noting, the US has engineered many other coups since the end of WWII also: Instances of the United States overthrowing, or attempting to overthrow, a foreign government since the Second World War. (* indicates successful ouster of a government) And this list by William Blum was compiled in 2013....and there have been many more coups to add to in the last 6 years: China 1949 to early 1960s Albania 1949-53 East Germany 1950s Iran 1953 * Guatemala 1954 * Costa Rica mid-1950s Syria 1956-7 Egypt 1957 Indonesia 1957-8 British Guiana 1953-64 * Iraq 1963 * North Vietnam 1945-73 Cambodia 1955-70 * Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 * Ecuador 1960-63 * Congo 1960 * France 1965 Brazil 1962-64 * Dominican Republic 1963 * Cuba 1959 to present Bolivia 1964 * Indonesia 1965 * Ghana 1966 * Chile 1964-73 * Greece 1967 * Costa Rica 1970-71 Bolivia 1971 * Australia 1973-75 * Angola 1975, 1980s Zaire 1975 Portugal 1974-76 * Jamaica 1976-80 * Seychelles 1979-81 Chad 1981-82 * Grenada 1983 * South Yemen 1982-84 Suriname 1982-84 Fiji 1987 * Libya 1980s Nicaragua 1981-90 * Panama 1989 * Bulgaria 1990 * Albania 1991 * Iraq 1991 Afghanistan 1980s * Somalia 1993 Yugoslavia 1999-2000 * Ecuador 2000 * Afghanistan 2001 * Venezuela 2002 * Iraq 2003 * Haiti 2004 * Somalia 2007 to present Libya 2011* Syria 2012 Q: Why will there never be a coup d’état in Washington? A: Because there’s no American embassy there.

This is not discussed at all in the public debate. But in Canada, we have way too many Ministries, which in turn creates a really fat government with a lot of Ministers, who cost a lot of money in turn, plus their teams and executives that drives the cost of government through the roof. I'll list the stupidest Ministries first, then I'll list those who are basically useless since another Ministry should already cover their field. List of the most stupid ministries; Ministry of Seniors, Ministry for La Francophonie, Ministry for Canada Post Corporation, Ministry for Canadian Dairy Commission, Ministry of Status of Women, Ministry of Canadian Heritage. Each one of those should not have to exist, and/or to have a Ministry to regulate those. I'm sorry Frenchies (I am French from Québec), but a Ministry just for the French Language is incredibly stupid. A Ministry for old people (Seniors)? A Ministry for Canada Post? A Ministry for the Dairy lobby? Those ministries are totally unjustifiable, a waste of money, and sheer indirect corruption. Next for me are the 'double Ministries' which are petty to say the least. Very petty. They sometimes are even a triple ministry. Demonstration here; Ministry of Science ===== Ministry of Science AND Sports ===== Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Ministry of intergovernmental Affairs and Youths ===== Ministry of intergovernmental Affairs, Northern Affairs and International Trade Ministry of Canadian Heritage ==== Ministry of Culture (Ministry of Culture does not exist, my bad) Ministry of International Trade ===== Ministry of International Trade Diversification Ministry of Small Business and Export promotion ===== Ministry of Small Business and Tourism Does anyone agree we have some serious fat to cut with a chainsaw? It's not even a surgery with a scalpel that we need. It's a straight up psycho from Texas that we need to cut the fat. Discuss, and correct me.

Jacee is sure giving that label a workout! Now, anyone who didn't agree with Don Cherry being fired is a WHITE SUPREMACIST!

LOL Dr Youth the champagne Xenophobe.

Go back and read - the polls have been posted many times.

Post-QEII, the monarchy is going to look a lot sillier.

Not even close that is all hogwash. Even the people saying ford cut education,when it is the liberals that cut it and ford has added to it.

Conservative Queen - Margaret Thatcher declared 40 years ago right in the British Parliament: "there is no such thing as society!" And that sums up the radical individualist message of the new conservatism that arrived in the 70's and gave "free trade" a full embrace, as they tried to demolish all social institutions except for the mythologized family...that would exist as an oasis in the midst of the dog eat dog economies they've created. Most of these types of conservatives I know or have known, have built their success upon piles of inherited wealth and like the rich throughout history, are tone deaf to the suffering, concerns and misery they've helped to create around them. I'd like to believe that most of us....regardless of how or if we think our predicaments can be solved, are well aware that the numbers of homeless are growing each year in our cities. It doesn't seem to be quite as bad as the neoliberal paradises south of the border....yet, but we're heading in that direction, as more and more fall through the cracks and more and more are out panhandling on city streets and intersections.

Yeah right, most working people know what "the market" will decide! Those of us who work in the last remaining union shops are the only workers left earning decent wages and benefits. Because 'the market' decided at the start of the age of neoliberalism to try to kick all of the profits up to the top and use the threats of outsourcing as blackmail to make wages fall further and further behind the real cost of living. But, all we need to do is take a look at the brave new world being created by Jeff Bezos! The time and motion man's dream come true! If you conservatives, and the more deceptive liberals doing the same shit, think that you can keep fooling working people forever with this pro-capitalist bullshit, you'll probably find out too late! The owners of highly profitable fast food and retail companies are invariably the last to "show appreciation!"

When I hear talk about western alienation I think about those of us in BC who will be faced by an Ottawa with the determination and the power to force Alberta's oil thru to the coast. I think the resistance to building more pipelines to tidewater should include being against making our oil accessible to the worst most dangerous dictatorship on the planet. I'd like to hear the politicians explain why selling Canadian oil to a dictatorship is more ethical than buying it from one. Now would be a good time to do this in light of the democracy movement in Hong Kong and increased awareness of Beijing's use of mass detention and indoctrination camps. Ironically Kenney appears all to willing to let the threat of separation force Ottawa to do something and at a time when the number of Canadians who admire Beijing's ability to use a government's force to get something done is growing. These are proverbially interesting times we live in, increasingly dangerous and less virtuous too - something else an increasing number of people who should know better could care less about.

NO, the rich are not paying most of the taxes! And you need to break down what taxes you're talking about here. Because most of the rich earn the bulk of their money from investment/not earned income! The richest 1% pay an effective federal income tax rate of 24.7% in 2014; someone making an average of $75,000 is paying a 19.7% rate. Speaking from the pov of someone earning about 85000 Cdn per year, I'm not poor, but neither do I have more money than I can possibly spend.....like the top 1%. When we're talking billionaires and at least one possible trillionaire in the next 15 years at current projections, I have to ask: what the hell is it all for? Is it about buying political power? Are you going to fund your own space stations in orbit or a base on Mars to live in after your money-making businesses have destroyed life on Earth? Do you plan to take it with you when you die? At some point, the endless quest to earn more profits is either an addiction or a sign of psychotic behaviour.....or both! And it needs to be pointed out that the poor have to pay those flat taxes (sales taxes, service charges etc.) that exact the same burden from everyone regardless of income! If we're calculating ability to pay, the poor always have the greatest burden! Since they have to cut spending on necessities, including food and medicine, if they have too many things to pay for. Bingo! Now do you think that after reducing corporate tax rates and investment tax rates and all of the various loopholes that allow companies like Amazon to pay zero corporate taxes for the past three years, the oligarchs are just going to say: maybe we cut our tax burden too much and need to change the rules back to where they were before? Hell will freeze over first! They will not make any concessions without fear that the working class will rise up and take their toys away. No, if Mitch played a role in replacing the elected government in Honduras with a drug-dealing general approved by the CIA, it came from the State Dept. and specifically from Hillary Clinton herself! Even Democrat media has to be honest about her first foreign policy disaster under the Obama Administration: Did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Enable the Coup in Honduras? 02/19/2016 10:58 am ET Updated Feb 19, 2017 On June 28, 2009, when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, democratically elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was overthrown by a military coup. The United Nations, the European Union, and the Organization of American States condemned the coup, and on July 5, Honduras was suspended from the OAS. Under longstanding and clear-cut U.S. law, all U.S. aid to Honduras except democracy assistance, including all military aid, should have been immediately suspended following the coup. On August 7, fifteen House Democrats, led by Rep. Raúl Grijalva, sent a letter to the Administration which began, “As you know, on June 28th, 2009 a military coup took place in Honduras,” and said: “The State Department should fully acknowledge that a military coup has taken place and follow through with the total suspension of non-humanitarian aid, as required by law.” Why wasn’t U.S. aid to Honduras suspended following the coup? The justification given by Clinton’s State Department on August 25 for not suspending U.S. aid to Honduras was that events in Honduras were murky and it was not clear whether a coup had taken place. Clinton’s State Department claimed that State Department lawyers were studying the murky question of whether a coup had taken place. This justification was a lie, and Clinton’s State Department knew it was a lie. By July 24, 2009, the State Department, including Secretary Clinton, knew clearly that the action of the Honduran military to remove President Zelaya on June 28, 2009 constituted a coup. On July 24, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens sent a cable to top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Clinton, with subject: “Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup,” thoroughly documenting the assertion that “there is no doubt” that the events of June 28 “constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup.” Why did Clinton’s State Department lie and pretend that it was murky whether a coup had taken place when it knew the fact that a coup had taken place was clear-cut? Because Hillary Clinton wanted the coup to succeed. Clinton’s strategy to help the coup succeed, as revealed in her emails, was “delay, delay, delay,” as Donald Trump might say. Delay any action that might help force the coup government to stand down and allow the democratically elected President to be restored to office. As she later confessed in her book, her goal was to “render the question of [President] Zelaya moot.” Today, the rule of law in Honduras still has not recovered from the coup that Secretary Clinton helped enable. That’s a key reason that refugees have fled Honduras to the United States, only to find themselves hunted by the Department of Homeland Security raids that Secretary Clinton supported before she opposed them.

Most progressives and conservatives suck. A lot of progressives tend to be coddling p*ssies and a lot of conservatives tend to be a-holes. You need a balance of compassion and personal responsibility. I can feel compassion for you and get you a bit of help but you also have to get off your butt and do the work to make your life better to help yourself. We should not coddle and shelter people, and we should not treat people with indifference when they're suffering either.

I agree with this to some extend. There are cases proven with documents revealed by CIA that the West interfered and badly screwed up a nation. Iran and Iranians is a CLEAR case of this. Recent revealed documents by CIA indicated how in a devious manner US fooled by the damned devious British Churchill (God damn his soul, may he rest in hell) in 1953 staged a military coup ordered by US president Eisenhower (God damn his soul may b he rest in hell) and toppled the democratically elected government of Dr. Mossadegh. Iran nation was really screwed up by that action and ever since is under dictatorship and many Iranians have died as a result. The 1953 military coup led to 1979 revolution which brought death and destruction to Iran and Iranians and still does. The problems the whole world is having now from this regime including the US and Europe are the fault of the US and the British. Islamic regime is their creation. The US and British are morally and legally responsible for this and now they have the obligation to help this nation to rid of this self imposed regime by any possible means.

And that's the type of society you think is preferable? Really? We're talking about normal life circumstances, interruptions in earnings, that occur to many people. This is a means for saving money that's already being spent, costs associated with human breakdowns. Perhaps you can think of it like your vehicle: You invest in oil changes, tuneups and other preventive maintenance so it lasts longer, uses less fuel, etc - ie, it costs you a bit upfront, but saves you MORE money in the long run, preventing catastrophic breakdowns, etc.

In the old days children got rickets and witches were burned at the stake. Is there anything else you'd like to go back to? The suppression of science by the church maybe? Taking mercury to heal syphillus perhaps? Is all progress a curse in your eyes?

Life is traumatic, suck it up, buttercup, if you don't like the welfare, stop swanning about and go to work, otherwise, just piss off then /shrugs

Oh please, these people are just pathetically weak. Stop enabling them

Some info on the original Captain Boycott, a rather unsavoury individual: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott Another row over land.

Okay so after multiple back and forths with Dougie over his beef with Confederation, my conclusion is that, like many on here, he’s a former Canadian nationalist who feels disillusioned with the Canadian national project because of the creeping nanny welfare state, top down interventionism, and misplaced anti-Americanism, even as Canada depends too heavily on American protection. He’s right to be critical, yet he has also sung the praises of Pierre Eliot Trudeau, who radically dismantled the Canadian military and snubbed the U.S. as hegemon, Western self-interest, and Quebec separatism, while accelerating multiculturalism, bilingualism, and leftism. I think the reason many of us were so awed by PET is because he seemed to have a laser clear idea of what Canada is and could be, a place not bogged down by the interests of a select few places or people in the country, the military overspending and imperialist dangers of the Cold War, or the colonial trappings of Canada as merely Britain’s outpost in North America, and he had a genuine appreciation for the far north and Canadian culture, which is part American, part English, part French, part Indigenous, part cosmopolitan/multicultural, and grounded in a sense of the struggle to communicate, distribute, service, and provide police security across a vast territory with a harsh climate. Many today would say PET went too far in alienating the West, deescalating the military, pissing off the Americans, chumming around with Castro, and so forth. No one would deny that he was a strong and intelligent leader with a love of the country. It’s hard to find visionary leaders these days. The bottom line is that if you think the Canadian nation state has something to offer the world and Canadians beyond what the provinces could offer as separate countries, what the US could offer Canadians if Canada was part of the US, or what Britain once provided Canada when our government was still partly represented in the British parliament, you’re going to have to provide a compelling vision that Canadians will support. We have a good thing in Canada. Most Canadians love the country and want to keep it together as an independent entity. In fact Canada is hugely successful, attracting millions from around the world. It is one of the best countries in which to live and work. However, we need to wake up to the modern realities of migration pressures and global economic competitiveness. We cannot depend on the US as our primary export market or to defend our border. We need to expand foreign markets, manage immigration more carefully in the national interest, and have a military equal to the task of defending our vast territory and growing population. We also have to be careful that our citizens don’t become too soft and dependent on handouts, as has happened in many European countries. We have to be careful not to pander to special interests that threaten our nationhood and spirit, both financially and ideologically. I think Justin Trudeau’s multitude of apologies, inquiries, and promises have done some harm in that regard, even if the intent was the typical Canadian boy scout attempt to complete PET’s just society. We don’t want to kill the giving tree or boy scout, because I think we would have bigger problems if Canada lapsed into fascism or de-Confederated. Dougie would prefer that Canada break up. If Canada doesn’t address the pressure points I described, that idea will become more compelling. If we run into economic trouble, the pressures will be exacerbated, which is why we cannot have policies that prevent resource development or make it harder to do business. I respect JT for trying to balance climate change policy with resource development interests, but we can’t pursue expensive climate policies if our largest trading partners are not implementing similar policies. There’s a lot of ignorance out there about infrastructure like pipelines, which are safer and more environmentally friendly than transporting by truck and train. If we can’t get our resources to market efficiently, you can forget climate policies, because the people will always put food, housing, and employment above other interests, including the nation state.

I agree, but how often does that happen? The quality of our judges is low. The judicial system is ridiculously overburdened with red tape and bureaucracy, and 'justice' is a concept rather than an ideal to be lived up to. I don't trust our system to ensure that only the guilty are convicted.

If we had real conservatives around here, they'd be championing a private sector solution to the punishment problem ! Why is the state getting involved in my quibbles with my neighbour ? What kind of bureaucrat wants to take away my private property (my machete) that I use to settle these manners ? Hangmen cost taxpayer dollars - get the government out of my space and let me handle my neighbour's blaring MC Hammer music on my own terms, in my own time with my own bazooka !

Every con leader is hated. They are the ones that have to make the tough decisions to clean up left wing messes. I guess jacee was not around for mike harris and ralph klein, those were real cuts,unlike what ford is doing. You know jacee, eventually the bills have to be paid, something you seem not to understand.