BeaverFever

Yes I do. I don’t rely on sanitized history. The Underground Railroad for slave and confederate alike led to Canada.

So you’re trying to outdo them?

Lmao. Sorry not sorry. I know you want a whitewashed and redacted version of history that suits your political narrative. But as the saying goes facts don’t care about your feelings. There’s nothing “mentally unbalanced” about speaking inconvenient truths that you can’t handle and want to censor. And yet thats what they initially implemented

John Bolton Says Ramaswamy Reminds Him of Ex-Boss Trump: ‘Firm Opinions on Subjects He Knows Absolutely Nothing About’ The former national security advisor said the 2024 GOP hopeful 'may as well be in kindergarten' talking about Ukraine …… https://themessenger.com/politics/john-bolton-says-ramaswamy-reminds-him-of-ex-boss-trump-firm-opinions-on-subjects-he-knows-absolutely-nothing-about

Wrong again. Putin is the blood thirsty POS playing with other peoples’ lives and he is already getting a Gawd Damn spanking.

Most of the factors that contribute to crime like poverty, economics etc are beyond the control of Municipal governments anyway. The point of the OP is that the political affiliation is irrelevant to crime but as usual republicans have seized upon the opportunity to spread disinformation

LMAO, the levels of absolute delusion you’ve subjected yourself to, it’s astounding.

Ukraine is fighting in its own country in self defence. You seem to believe self-defence is immoral. So far there are no signs that Ukraine is running out of troops as you say given that Ukraine has fully mobilized its population back at the start of the invasion whereas politically and economically Putin can’t afford to fully mobilize the Russian population. Since Russia invaded the Ukrainian military grown to several times its pre-invasion size while the Russian military has only shrunk

…well against their OWN taxation without representation anyway. In the beginning they had no problem with limiting their new “rights and freedoms” exclusively to land-owning white males.

I would argue that when tue US first bece so rich they were much more like a single cohesive country than they are now. The fact that they are rapidly disintegrating into a collection of separate countries might be their undoing

Criminal or civil, it still speaks to his character And anyways his whole claim is basically nothing but Russian propaganda. Let’s recap: Russia put out a public statement saying without any evidence that it’s about to overwhelmingly win the entire war, something that it’s said many times over the past year and a half of constant losing and having already taken a quarter million casualties. But instead of ignoring it as more empty-word propaganda from a country whose unbroken track record for lying and murdering its own citizens goes back centuries, this mor0n reports the latest absurd boast as some sort of new newsworthy “fact”. And you fell for it too.

Everything above the hyperlink to the article in the OP is the from the article’s synopsis of the book. . Everything below the hyperlink is my personal commentary which was meant to be a separate post in this thread but now this forum automatically merges back to back posts

Reagan and Thatcher were the first to endorse neoliberalism and “cross the line” with new policies. But many of those ideas take time to bear fruit and become accepted by mainstream “centrists” It was Clinton who ultimately gave these policies “centrist” legitimacy in the public sphere and who enacted and presided over many of the outsourcing/globalization: neoliberal trends that most directly resulted in the current state of affairs

Lots of very wealthy ranchers. Also many farmers.

A New Progressive Account of Clinton Presidency Finds Him Responsible for Many of Today’s Ills In his 1996 State of the Union Address, President Bill Clinton declared, “The era of big government is over.” House and Senate Republicans jumped up and applauded, and newspapers around the country used the claim in their headlines. Less noticed was Clinton’s next sentence: “But we cannot go back to a time when our citizens were left to themselves” as well as his assertion in 1998 that “Our mission has been to save government from its own excesses so that it can be a progressive force.” Whatever his intentions, Nelson Lichtenstein and Judith Stein assert in their new book, A Fabulous Failure: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism, that “the era of big government is over,” was evidenced by the accommodations the Clinton administration made to global corporate capitalism. Lichtenstein, a research professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of A Century of American Labor, and the late Judith Stein, a former professor of history at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and the author of Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories For Finance in the Seventies, provide an extraordinarily detailed — and often compelling — analysis of Clinton’s domestic policies from an unabashedly progressive perspective. Many of those policies, according to the authors, contributed to growing inequality, recurring financial crises, and the rise of right-wing populism in the United States. Lichtenstein and Stein demonstrate that Clinton, heavily influenced by Robert Rubin, chair of the National Economic Council and then-Secretary of the Treasury, supported legislation designed to unleash market forces in the U.S. economy. Although deficit reduction erased his promise of a middle-class tax cut and investments in education, infrastructure, and the environment, Clinton boasted at the end of the ‘90s that the budget cuts narrowly passed by Congress in 1993 freed up about $1 trillion for private sector investment. Former US president Bill Clinton delivers a speech in front of government headquarters in Tirana on July 3, 2023, during a ceremony held in his honor as part of his first official visit to Albania.ADNAN BECI/AFP via Getty Images The president, the authors suggest, never really addressed the extent to which his emphasis on deficits became a politically potent symbol of the federal government’s inability to manage its own affairs. Or the “paradox” identified by Robert Kuttner, editor of The American Prospect: “You don’t get deficit reduction by targeting deficit reduction. You achieve it — over time — by raising the rate of growth and fixing the health system” to slow inflation, a reform Clinton failed to get through Congress. Moreover, throughout (and beyond) the ‘90s, more money poured into speculative bubbles than productive domestic investment. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Lichtenstein and Stein claim, was a “political blunder of the first order” that split the Democratic Party, alienated working-class voters, and contributed to the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016. Opposed by labor unions, consumer advocates, and environmentalists, NAFTA lacked enforcement mechanisms to ensure that Mexico narrow the eight-to-one wage differential north and south of the Rio Grande or improve working conditions. NAFTA produced downward pressure on the salaries of U.S. workers; devastated textile and apparel industries in the South (accelerating GOP dominance in the region); increased investment of U.S. corporations in Mexico; and, by putting farmers in direct competition with agribusiness enterprises in the U.S. and Canada, helped make Mexico the largest contributor to international labor migration in the world between 2000 and 2005. Meanwhile, although the authors acknowledge that NAFTA and cheap labor in foreign factories in Asia drove down the prices of imported consumer goods, saving each American family thousands of dollars, they estimate that China’s admission to the World Trade Organization led to losses of more than 1.5 million manufacturing jobs in the United States, with Wal-Mart responsible for nearly 200,000 of them. And the Clinton administration made capital mobility throughout the globe a core priority. The repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall law (which mandated the separation of traditional commercial banking and more risky investment operations), passage of the Telecommunications Act, and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (which exempted the OTC derivatives markets from all federal regulation), the authors indicate, contributed to merger mania, industry oligopoly, and huge, volatile capital flows. Specialists in labor history, Lichtenstein and Stein also take Clinton to task for what they perceive as his indifference to trade unions. The president, they indicate, did not press very hard for the National Labor Relations Board to increase protection for union organizing and bargaining rights — or for congressional legislation prohibiting companies from breaking strikes by bringing in replacement workers. And, they say, Clinton was willing to play down violations of human rights abroad — including forced labor, child labor, and sweatshop conditions — because threatening to limit access to American markets might imperil lucrative supply chains and trade agreements with “rogue” nations. A salutary impact of the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Lichtenstein and Stein conclude, is that it pushed the Democratic Party to the left. In 2020, President Biden embraced that shift, with a big assist from COVID-19 and narrow majorities in the House and Senate, by pushing through a progressive agenda, culminating in the American Rescue Plan and Build Back Better. That said, A Fabulous Failure ends on a cautionary note: The social forces necessary to implement a comprehensive and durable legislative strategy to build an industrial base, enhance public investment, reduce inequality, and combat climate change, are not now in place. These days, the United States needs “their transformational energy” more than ever. Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. https://themessenger.com/opinion/new-progressive-account-of-clinton-presidency-finds-him-responsible-for-many-of-todays-ills As I’ve said many times before the “centrists” Democrats and LPCs typified by the Clintons, Chretien-Martin, Michael Ignatieff etc were economic conservatives who only materially differed from Republicans and conservatives on social issues such as gay rights and abortion, etc.

Battle over 24 Sussex's future heats up with a new plan to save run-down residence The Ottawa-based firm Trace Architectures has drawn up a proposal for a 'radical rehabilitation' of the prime minister's official residence at 24 Sussex Dr. (Supplied by Trace Architectures) As part of an effort to save 24 Sussex Drive for future prime ministers, a group of heritage-minded construction industry figures has come forward with a plan to restore the dilapidated residence. Historic Ottawa Development Inc. (HODI) — a non-profit organization that includes noted architects, conservationists and project managers with a track record of saving heritage properties from demolition — says it can't stomach the idea of the 150-year-old building being abandoned as the prime minister's official residence. HODI maintains the home has been at the centre of national political life for generations and shouldn't be relegated to the dustbin of history. Marc Denhez is the president of HODI and a past member of the official residences advisory committee at the National Capital Commission (NCC). He said he believes reports of the home's state of decay have been exaggerated and the suggested price tag to fix the place is out of step with industry norms for a renovation project of this scale. "We have a number of experts at our disposal and all of them unanimously have said the $36.6 million figure is for the birds," Denhez told CBC News. A 2021 NCC report concluded the residence is in "critical" condition and estimated the cost to complete "deferred maintenance" at more than $36 million. The report set the home's "current replacement value" at $40.1 million. "It can be done for a lot less money if you know how to kick the tires. And we have people who know how to kick tires," Denhez said. The grounds at the Prime Minister's residence at 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa. The National Capital Commission (NCC) has started to strip the property of asbestos and remove obsolete mechanical, heating and electrical systems — but the property's future is still uncertain. (Tom Hanson/The Canadian Press) He said the option of commandeering landin Ottawa's Rockcliffe Park for a new home — floated by government sources in a Radio-Canada story earlier this week — would be more expensive than fixing up the current Gothic Revival-style home to modern standards. "Don't compare us to Jesus Christ. Compare us to the alternative and the alternative is kicking out park goers and putting a glass box in the middle of parkland," Denhez said. "There's an apparent assumption that it's going to be so much more economical to snatch up parkland and start from scratch. We don't think that's true." Trace Architectures' proposal for 24 Sussex Dr. would preserve the existing home. (Supplied by Trace Architectures) Denhez said it shouldn't take millions of dollars to clear out dead rats and squirrels in the walls. Remediation work to remove asbestos and replace outdated electric systems is already underway, he added. Denhez said the prime minister doesn't require a lavish home with a designated space for large receptions. He said that under Canada's Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, it's the King's representative who has most of the official hosting duties and Rideau Hall is already well equipped to handle such events. What the prime minister needs, Denhez said, is a respectable home worthy of a G7 leader with space for family and rooms to host smaller affairs of state. A renovated 24 Sussex, at 12,000 square feet, would fit the bill, he said. "It's the Crown that has the responsibility for holding state events. In Britain, you don't have a state banquet at No. 10 Downing St. The prime minister gets in his limo and drives over to Buckingham Palace," he said. "The same practice applies here in Canada. But you have some people in government who are saying, 'Oh, 24 Sussex, it's not presidential enough.'" A spokesperson for the NCC declined to comment on the agency's long-term plans for 24 Sussex. The home was closed for "health and safety reasons" last fall, the spokesperson said. Starting in September, construction workers will start "abatement of designated substances" while removing outdated mechanical and electrical systems, she said. A spokesperson for Public Services and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the government is working closely with the NCC to "develop a plan for the future." A government source speaking to CBC News on background said Duclos will release the government's plan for the residence "soon." "That's the best I can tell you. The final plan will come soon. It's at the top of the list for the minister," the source said. Trace Architectures' proposal for 24 Sussex Dr. would add an 'official wing' to the residence for state functions. (Supplied by Trace Architectures) Ken Grafton, a project manager at HODI, said the government shouldn't be rushing into a decision to replace the home. He said HODI wants the opportunity to make its pitch to Duclos to save 24 Sussex. He said the NCC has stymied HODI's efforts to obtain detailed documents about the home's condition and the figures that support the $36.6 million price tag to replace it. "The historic value of the home is very high. Think of all the world leaders that have been through there. It'd be ridiculous to demolish that. The government can't be that callous," Grafton said. "We've assembled a team that's really bulletproof in terms of credibility on built heritage. We just want the chance to overturn the negative narrative that's been surrounding 24 Sussex for too long. We want to be a resource for the government." WATCH: 24 Sussex may never house another prime minister The official residence of the prime minister, 24 Sussex Drive, may never house another prime minister. The federal government is looking into options for a more modern and secure house for future prime ministers. Mark Brandt is a senior conservation architect at Trace, an Ottawa firm that has worked on retrofits of prominent heritage buildings like Parliament Hill's East Block and the Sir John A. Macdonald Building. A past president of HODI who supports the non-profit's current efforts to save the home, Brandt has drafted an unsolicited proposal to preserve 24 Sussex while also building a new "official wing" on the home's expansive two-hectare grounds. The existing residence would be returned to its original function as a single-family home while the new addition could be used for other official purposes, he said. "All this talk of demolishing a historic building — it's crazy. The residence can be saved and it can be rehabilitated. There's no reason to lose the history or the gravitas of the place," Brandt told CBC News. An architect at Trace Architectures, a firm that has worked on other historic rehabilitations in Ottawa, says the home's current location is secure. (Supplied by Trace Architectures) "You can do a completely modern, super-secure, net-zero carbon emissions addition. It can be a friendly next-door neighbour to the existing building which, as part of our proposal, can be fully restored on this spectacular site." Security concerns are what's motivating the government to consider other sites for the official residence. The existing home is relatively close to the street, which poses a risk given the real threats Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already faced while in office. But Brandt said those risks can be mitigated. The home's location — atop a cliff and surrounded by water on three sides — is already ideal from a security standpoint, he said. The existing perimeter fence and gate can be "hardened," he added, and the road system reworked slightly to prevent unwanted vehicles from getting too close. "The home's neighbours, the French embassy and the governor general's residence, seem to be quite happy with the security situation. Security is a challenge but I also think it's a red herring. We have great minds who've dealt with this before and they can do it again," he said. Other official residences, like the White House in Washington, D.C., are arguably much more exposed to security risks than 24 Sussex, he said. And other buildings frequented by Trudeau, including ones that Brandt's firm helped design in the parliamentary precinct, are also in more vulnerable urban locations, he said. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/save-24-sussex-new-plan-1.6953440

That’s a Big Stupid for someone with such a Big Job. But not the worst guy to hold that position, considering one of his recent predecessors in that post was a serial killer.

CFB Trenton commander temporarily removed from post following firearms charges Colonel Leif Dahl was arrested by OPP following a complaint that a firearm was being discharged from a boat and wildlife was being targeted ….Colonel Leif Dahl, 45, was arrested earlier this month following a complaint that a firearm was being discharged from a boat in the Murray Canal, an eight-kilometre-long channel that flows into Lake Ontario. It was reported to police that wildlife was being targeted from the boat. OPP later located the vessel and said that Dahl threw the firearm into the canal as police officers approached. Dahl faces five charges, including careless use of a firearm, hunting birds without a licence, and unlawfully having a loaded firearm in a conveyance….. https://www.coldlakesun.com/news/cfb-trenton-commander-firearms-charges

I like that idea! One of the articles suggested that the current Rideau Cottage temp arrangement sends the wrong message because it has the PM living in the King’s backyard. I like the idea of a PM kicking the King out of his house and taking it for himself, I think that sends the right message! Sending the King to 24 Sussex AS IS would send am even stronger message! Maybe put the furnace back in before winter though, I’m not completely heartless. ?

Well if you look at Lenin, Castro et all that was the plan of these communist movements but it didn’t really work out so well. ? But it’s not so simple a question depends what you mean by “rule”. If you mean that there would be a ban on people with post secondary education or net worth over a certain amount from positions of authority then no. If you mean that governments and political parties should stop acting like “business leaders” are infallible geniuses who know all and who have the only opinions that matter, then yes.

A pot of misconceptions on this thread fuelling the predictable sentiments. The problem with the criticism on this thread is that the posters assume that all homelessness people are drug addicted or mentally ill, which is mot the case at all. There is an entire class of homeless people and homeless families who are not addicted or mentally ill, many of whom even work, but have no stable housing so they sleep in their car, couch surf with friends and relatives, get a hotel or rooming house when they can and stay in shelters when they have mo other options. This study is about THOSE people and there are a lot more of them out there than you think Open your minds guys. I think you totally misunderstood that section. Part of the experiment was to see how the general public would expect the homeless people to spend their money so they SURVEYED THE PUBLIC to ask them for their predictions. And the people surveyed underestimated the character of these homeless people.

Now a mysterious “Mr X” is involved and an ANOTHER investigation into illegal lobbying is in the works! Raptors tickets, golf games and a $1M payday for Greenbelt land. Who is Mr. X? It's a name that sounds like it's borrowed from a spy thriller — but an unregistered lobbyist known as "Mr. X" is a very real part of the report released by Ontario's integrity commissioner into how lands were selected to be removed from the province's Greenbelt. Mr. X's name is kept out of the report, but it describes his outsized role in offering Raptors tickets and golf games to senior figures in the housing ministry while negotiating a $1 million "Greenbelt fee" contingent on getting a parcel of land developed in Clarington. "It seems like a cheap spy novel, in a way. You've got someone named Mr. X," said Lloyd Rang, a Clarington councillor, in an interview with CTV News. "It just seems too salacious for Ontario politics." Download our app to get local alerts on your device Get the latest local updates right to your inbox In the report, Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake found that Housing Minister Steve Clark broke ethics rules in a process to remove land from the protected Greenbelt that was marked by "unnecessary hastiness and deception." His former chief of staff, Ryan Amato, resigned, and Clark has apologized but vowed to stay on despite calls for him to step down too. Premier Doug Ford also stood by the embattled minister on Thursday, admitting there were flaws in the process but said they were in the effort of the larger goal of building new homes in a housing crisis. According to the report, Mr. X was contracted to work on getting 86 acres of land north of Nash Road out of the Greenbelt by its owner, Peter Tanenbaum, who had owned the property since before the creation of the protected green space. Records show Tanenbaum purchased the property for about $2.7 million about 20 years ago. The land value would sharply escalate with the legal ability to develop it for homes. Mr. X and Tanenbaum negotiated a contract on August 9, 2022, where Mr. X would be paid a $6,000 per month fee and a "Greenbelt Fee" of $225,000 earned when final approval has been obtained to remove the lands from the Greenbelt and a "Rezoning fee" of $775,000 when authorization to develop the land was granted. Put together, the payments would total $1 million. That could pose concerns because the report says Mr. X never registered as a lobbyist, where getting paid contingent on the results of lobbying isn't allowed by law. In September 2022, Mr. X wrote Tanenbaum saying that he had a lunch meeting with Amato and deputy chief of staff Kirstin Jensen. "Ours is the only file that I am discussing. I also have them coming to golf at Goodwood in 2 weeks with me and to a Raptors game," he said in an email, the report says. Amato denied to the commissioner that he met with Mr. X, and Jensen admitted he probably paid for lunch, the report says. The interaction is one of many by lobbyists whose activities Wake tracks on Greenbelt removals the province's auditor general has estimated would be collectively worth billions to landowners. "Mr. X certainly adds to the intrigue," said University of Toronto political scientist Chris Cochrane. "I don't remember an integrity commissioner report that outlined so much of the palace intrigue." NDP MPP Jeff Burch said the flawed process shouldn't stand — in part because it attracted mysterious figures like Mr. X. "This is the kind of thing you see in movies. It's not the kind of thing you see in the province of Ontario," said the NDP's Jeff Burch. The reason Wake doesn't disclose Mr. X's identity is because he says the commissioner can't disclose a lobbying investigation by law. "There will almost certainly be a subsequent investigation, he says as much when he says he'll be looking into the relationship between Mr. X and the government," Cochrane said. Meaning this isn't likely going to be the integrity commissioner's last word on Mr. X — or the Greenbelt. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/greenbelt-intrigue-deepens-with-account-of-raptors-tickets-1-million-payday-and-mr-x-1.6543896

They gave an order to release the land from the greenbelt and now they’re canceling their order.We have no idea whether thats as easy as pushing a button or whether staff will be meeting with lawyers for the next month trying to figure out how to undo this land grab. Just because Doug barked “camel my order” doesn’t mean that a process was in place and in fact the total lack of due diligence, Amato’s resignation and the AG and IGs scathing reports all show there was no process in place. Perhaps for this particular plot of land but not necessarily. The owner in china employed various local lobbyists and consultants who approached government on his behalf and the lobbyists are tue ones being rewarded. Or perhaps after so generously rewarding their rich buddies like the DeGasperis family they needed to throw a few random plots of land to make it look less obvious. And even if the Ford govs intentions with this particular plot of land were completely innocent the lack of due diligence just shows how recklessly they handled the file. Thats called false advertising. Clearly the owner or the firms he employed would have known if there was a requirement for residential only but we haven’t heard anything like that come from Ford. In fact we don’t what agreements or conditions were placed on these owners at all, we have only Dougs verbal statement that the “expectation” was for development not resale and we only have that verbal statement as a reaction to info exposed by the media Only because it was exposed by the media. I’ll remind you that the shitstorm and revelations only started after the AG released her report and that Doug tried to block her investigation which would have kept this all under wraps.

1) The facts and statistics speak for themselves 2) Don’t make it sound like the riots which happened years ago are regular occurrences, or that just because Republicans don’t protest against racism and police brutality their cities are more law abiding. Those are just places where the racism and brutality is accepted. 3) Decriminalizing minor offences is not the same as legalizing them, or the same as decriminalizing major offences. Drunk driving is not a minor offence and is not decriminalized. 4) American prosecutors have always had broad discretion in how to apply their power amd the right wing is only angry because that discretion is usually used as a weapon AGAINST the working class and poor instead of a tool to help them. Like when prosecutors decide at their discretion to charge people with felonies instead of misdemeanours in order to secure a quick guilty plea or fluff their “tough on crime” credentials for voters. American prosecutors sent hundreds if not thousands of people to life sentences for petty crimes like shoplifting a cookie -mostly people struggling with homeless and addictions - because “3 strikes” laws allowed prosecutors to count misdemeanours as a third felony and therefore seek a life sentence. Now Republicans are crying because some guy who’s too poor to pay for his license renewal or insurance on time isn’t ripped away from his job and family and made a felon permanently ineligible to vote or earn a legal living wage. Meanwhile America’s wealthy have always enjoyed the benefits and privileges of prosecutorial discretion in USA, (and if unlucky with prosecutors, the judicial discretion from judges is their safety net). You never her Republican complain about THAT. In Texas COVID is a hoax but “Affluenza” is a real disability that allows wealthy unrepentant killers in Texas to live free. I also never heard the Republican media’s squawk about the Dupont family fortune heir who plead guilty sodomizing his own 3-yr old child without getting jail time and having the court records sealed to boot. But a poor person not getting thrown in the hole for a minor infraction sets them on fire for days.

Yeah I think it’s something like that, with the big donors being the primary factor. But the people giving $100k (or maybe even millions considering all dark money and slush funds and superpac nonsense that is now legal in the US) are also shopping for politicians to buy. I doubt they’re going to close their wallets if their current politician retires, they’ll just buy off the new guy that comes along. So similar to your point but kind of on the flip side, Big donors, even if they are going to donate anyway no matter who is on the ballot, have no interest in replacing politicians who deliver on their agenda with someone new so they basically use their wealth and power to keep their favored incumbents in office.