I am Groot

You have a singularly shallow grasp on things. The purpose of a political party is for people who share an ideology and vision to combine in order to govern and pass legislation to further their vision of a nation or people. You should actually want to accomplish things, in other words, as opposed to being elected to be elected. In your view above the actual purpose is merely to put on a play, a performance for the cameras to convince people to elect you. And afterward your responsibilities end. That certainly melds with this 'style over substance' government and it's drama teacher leader. Unlike you, however, I don't believe this is something to be applauded. Well, to begin with Harper had advisors but didn't seem to need his hand held during every conversation. He had competent ministers who were capable of zipping up their trousers without supervision from the PMO. That suggests his limitations were rather less limited than the current PM, and he understood how delegation works. In addition, Morneau was one of those much more capable people and by his own testimony he was given precious little attention from Trudeau or the short pants crowd at the PMO. Or do you think Gerald Butts was more capable than Morneau of running the financial affairs of the country? Oh wait, actually running the financial affairs properly for the benefit of the country isn't what you believe a political party should be doing, correct? Using the money and finances of the country to further your own political interests is the real job. This is such a bald confession of what you believe the Liberal party stands for and how it functions it's a wonder you're not embarrassed to write it and proclaim yourself a supporter.

We all know this is a government of style over substance. We've seen Trudeau's narcissism and desperate need to be liked all the way from when he was in college and doing stupid things to get people to look at him, including his wild array of costumes he never grew out of. We can see his policies designed for visual appeal rather than substance. Bill Morneau, however, gives us a glimpse of life on the inside. And how dismayed he found to discover that even as Finance Minister, he just wasn't important enough for Trudeau to pay any attention to. Morneau rarely got to speak to Trudeau except when the latter was surrounded by advisors. And Trudeau just wasn't interested in policy. A few descriptions from his book say as much. The PMO cared about the news cycle and politics, not about actual governing. By his own telling, his personal interaction with Mr. Trudeau was virtually non-existent. The two men rarely met. When they did, the PM was usually surrounded by advisers, precluding the opportunity for frank, one-on-one exchanges. The portrait of his time in government that Mr. Morneau paints in his new book, Where To From Here, serves as a cautionary tale for future leaders on how not to alienate the best members of their teams and a disillusioning insider account about how the Trudeau government works. A Bay Street veteran with solid business credentials, Mr. Morneau’s talents were largely wasted in a government that obsesses about winning the news cycle and cares little about fiscal matters. “My job providing counsel and direction where fiscal matters were concerned had deteriorated into serving as something between a figurehead and a rubber stamp,” he writes. “There was only revision of my recommendations, ever upward, toward funding levels the PMO believed would play well the next time Canada went to the polls.” When it comes to the massive splurge of spending around the pandemic, Morneau is clear that it wasn't what he had wanted. "We lost the agenda. During the period when the largest government expenditures as a portion of GDP were made in the shortest time since the advent of World War II, calculations and recommendations from the Ministry of Finance were basically disregarded in favour of winning a popularity contest," he writes. "In a moment where I saw us taking decisions that were more significant than I thought we needed, it was frankly, extremely frustrating," Morneau said in the interview. "I think in that moment, you know, it started to sow the seeds of a challenge. That we just weren't going to be able to recover." So the next time Liberals try to tell you all that spending was necessary, remember what they mean is 'necessary to help our election chances'. Further on his inability to discuss things with Trudeau one on one he says that isn't just about him. Trudeau never discussed anything with his cabinet one on one. Morneau mentions this when he talks of his resignation. He writes it was one of the "very few" times the two had discussed something in private without any other advisers or sources of counsel in the room which "simply didn't happen" in Trudeau's world. "Virtually any topic you wanted to discuss with the prime minister—official or informal, strategy or gossip—had to be shared in the presence of members of his staff," he writes. That says to me Trudeau doesn't believe he has the capability to deal with issues on his own, that he needs staff around him to provide the council on all the subjects he lacks knowledge of and to reign in his impulse to respond through is own judgement. This says nothing good about Trudeau as a leader. And that is one of the other things Morneau mentions, Trudeau's inability to develop interpersonal relationships with his cabinet ministers. He might be the smiley, charming guy for the press but in government he apparently keeps his distance. Which is odd. Harper was famously an introvert but he did establish a number of close relationships with cabinet ministers. Maybe Harper didn't have to fear every conversation would be in waters over his head the way Trudeau does. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-bill-morneaus-talents-were-wasted-in-justin-trudeaus-ottawa/ https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/morneau-says-pm-favoured-political-points-over-policy-felt-like-rubber-stamp-ahead-of-inevitable-resignation-1.6221671

The group the justice system has probably gotten the most slack about punishing - focusing on 'rehabilitation' instead, is native women. Interestingly, despite years of efforts the number of native women in prisons is rising. It's now about 42% of the prison population. Which is crazy given natives only make up about 5% of the population. Even native men only account for 28%. So all told, I'd say the policy has been a failure. It's hard to see how things will be improved by increasing the number of people diverted into this system.

Oh Lord, it's hard to be humbleWhen you're perfect in every wayI can't wait to look in the mirror'Cause I get better lookin' each dayTo know me is to love meI must be a hell of a manOh Lord, it's hard to be humbleBut I'm doin' the best that I can!

Another fail for the justice system. A guy was arrested yesterday in a random stabbing in Mississauga. He'd been out on bail for 'similar offenses'. https://www.cp24.com/news/suspect-in-custody-after-unprovoked-stabbing-in-mississauga-leaves-man-with-critical-injuries-police-1.6225865

Dude, this reads like a cliche of some sister humping backwoods American ignoramus with a grade three education. I picture you all sweaty in a half open checked short sleeve shirt with a dirty baseball cap and two days of stubble stomping around and pointing his finger at everyone while you yell at the clouds. I don't care if you post crazy rants but frankly, the only people you're going to convince with that sort of attitude are fellow crazies.

I hate to break it to you, chump, but FOX news is full of shit. I'm also not a fan of the Democrats, not an American, and find this kind of froth-at-the-mouth posting style to be stuck halfway between amusing and sad. Like, what's wrong with you? Have you sought aid from mental health resources?

I'll just park this here. https://qz.com/american-billionaires-political-spending-overwhelmingl-1849751449

This is, frankly, economically illiterate. The IRS isn't going after the poor because the poor have no money and generally no requirement to pay taxes. Much of the middle class is the same. And it has always gone after the upper middle class. The people they haven't been able to go after are the rich and corporations, with complicated returns that take a lot of time and expertise to check through and then with dealing with the high-priced accountants the rich and corporations use to play games and avoid taxes.

This is merely the Republicans working for their constituents - the large donors who fund them. They've been doing their best to slash and burn the IRS down so their big donors can get away with large-scale cheating for many years now. During a brief period where the Democrats controlled both houses and the administration much of that funding was increased. To the horror of the wealthy tax cheats who fund the Republicans. This 'cut' will, of course, never make it through the senate, and would be vetoed by Biden anyway. But it demonstrates that the Republican congress will be wasting its time and taxpayer money doing all kinds of political stuff of no substance. I do appreciate the irony of the name given to the bill, though. It's about as accurate as something out of North Korea. Family and small business taxpayer protection act? LOL. I guess "Billionaire and major corporation protection act" wouldn't sound as good.

And don't worry about that ... what's it called again... governing? Yeah, that's a waste of time. It's not like America has any actual problems that need handling. Let's spend all our time on Hunter Biden's laptop or something.

Maybe some underage girls to pass around? I mean, Matt Gaetz seems to have been the main holdout..

These crappy stories of our ridiculous injustice system are coming so fast and furious it's hard to even keep up. This is a guy arrested for attempted murder while out on bail for ... attempted murder. He was also wanted at the time by another police service for... attempted murder AND MURDER. He actually succeeded that time! What a trooper! If at first you don't succeed, try, try again! https://www.peelpolice.ca//modules/news/index.aspx?newsId=4d55a4f4-3c98-4e2c-af8b-286fd0182c81&lang=en

Canada will have none of it, which is why we have criminals with thirty, forty, fifty, even a hundred convictions roaming the streets hurting people, stealing anything not nailed down (and some stuff that is) and generally making life worse for all the rest of us. At some point in time we need to come to terms with a new designation for career criminals and stop rotating them through the ludicrously liberal revolving door of injustice. Criminologists, of all people, have been spotted actually pleading for longer prison sentences — an extraordinary, even shocking sign of systemic dysfunction in crime prevention. What the Vancouver police are really saying by mentioning an accused crook’s 115-plus convictions en passant is: we’re losing the damn war out here and the judges are on the opposite side. I know the courts won’t tolerate anything that savours of mandatory minimums, but maybe we could at some point consider a 100-strikes-and-you’re-out law? https://nationalpost.com/opinion/colby-cosh-what-a-gallery-heist-says-about-our-justice-system

Especially if they can claim membership in a preferred identity group. Given that the preferred identity groups tend to be the ones who commit the most violent crime. For example, 40% of homicides in Canada are committed by natives. So now the judicial system bends over backwards to give them the lightest possible sentences. Of course, society pays for this but no part of society pays more than the natives who are usually the victims of these violent offenders. Witness the crazed native who killed a dozen people earlier in the summer, who ought to have been in prison. Now we have the BC appeals court coming out with an even more generous interpretation of the race-based laws. A man with 30 previous convictions who brutally stabbed a man and slashed his throat in an unprovoked attack received the ridiculously light sentence of 5 years in prison. But it seems he now realizes he's metis, so the appeals court says his sentence has to be reduced by a year. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-bc-top-court-broadens-sentencing-law-aimed-at-reducing-indigenous/

A clown show where the pedophile and the airhead bimbo are making demands of the rest of the party to meet THEIR high standards of political representation.

Where does this nonsense theme keep coming from? Canada is NOT going to lead. Other countries have been leading for decades now. There's no chance we'll catch up to them. There's no chance we'll even equal them. That you don't know about them just indicates how little attention is being paid to 'leaders' on climate change. No one in China or Russia, or India, for that matter, Texas, is going around saying "Man, those Norwegians are really impressing me with their climate change leadership. We should follow them!" Western nations have been leading. Where you been? They've spent hundreds of billions of dollars so far, maybe But guess what? Hundreds of coal plants are still going up.