I am Groot

American politics have been corrupt for a long time, but they've gotten much worse since their Supreme Court abandoned any pretense of protecting ordinary people and went all in on the idea that any restrictions on what people can spend on elections, or how much can be donated is somehow 'unconstitutional'. If American democracy dies it will be aided and abetted by an eager Supreme Court that shrugs off gerrymandering and other efforts at denying people a legitimate vote. Like ensuring people in the opposition areas have to line up for hours in the sun - even passing laws against giving them water (!) while areas where the governing party holds the majority have plenty of polls so they can walk in and out quickly. "Sounds fine to us!" says the Supreme Court. But honestly, America has been a kind of a phony democracy for decades. Studies done by academics have shown over the years that what the American government does bears no correlation to what the polls of the time said the people wanted. The American government does what the rich campaign doners want, not what the people want.

I have no intention of voting for Fat Ford and his PC (Pretend Conservative) party again. I will be voting New Blue as a protest vote. Hopefully, other conservatives will do the same, enough to split the vote in some ridings and cost him some seats.

People are appalled that Trump would consider slapping a 25% tariff on Canadian imports. Guess who also puts taxes/tariffs on imports from Canada? Why, it's Quebec! That's right. The average taxes on interprovincial movement of goods in Canada amounts to 21%. Our GDP would bump 4-7% if we eliminated those taxes and trade barriers and had free trade among the provinces. But provincial governments - especially Quebec - won't hear of it. The elimination of those barriers would completely offset any damage to the economy of Trump's tariffs but almost no one is even talking about them except as a throwaway line.

Perhaps an appropriate editorial from the G&W. It's time for Canada to Grow up. It may seem odd to say that Canada, the world’s fourth oldest continuous democracy, needs to start behaving like a grownup, but that is precisely the moment in which the country finds itself. For too long, when it comes to the two areas of statehood that most require a firm adult hand – national defence and the economy – Canada’s federal and provincial governments have displayed the self-indulgent complacency of a teenager who tries to get away with doing the bare minimum. This lack of maturity is the result of an over-reliance on the United States for military protection and as a built-in source of export revenues. It has been so easy to do well enough that doing better hasn’t been deemed worth the effort required to get up off the basement couch. https://archive.is/9c6sU

People in Quebec vote for the party with the Quebec leader, no matter who he is. The tribal vote from Quebec is why the Liberals have won most of the elections in the last sixty years.

Reducing immigration will increase GDP per capita says Parliamentary budget officer. https://dominionreview.ca/parliamentary-budget-officer-cutting-immigration-raises-gdp-per-capita/

That you don't like its editorial stance is irrelevant. That you whine about it without questioning the quotes it has from Frank Graves is just an indication that you aren't interested in facts that contradict your worldview.

This is an Ekos poll. All Ekos polls show the Liberals far ahead of where the other half-dozen polling firms have them every time they come out. The guy who runs Ekos is Frank Graves, a ferociously partisan Liberal who has publicly vowed that Poilievre will never be PM if he has anything to say about it. Nobody takes Ekos polls seriously anymore. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/geoff-russ-ekos-boss-frank-graves-ill-advised-threat-to-keep-pierre-poilievre-from-winning

Now there's the pot calling the kettle black.

It's hard to make a business case for a pipeline that you know will require years and years of political and legal wrangling and likely won't ever be approved.

Because it's brainless to make things a teeny, tiny, itty-bitty, barely detectable less shitty in 75 years by making it far shittier today.

Don't look now people but... Guess who's gonna join the WEF meeting. Virtually, since he's a bit busy to fly over.

That phrase suggests Epstein was getting money for them when it seems more like he was just gifting their 'friendliness' to his friends and other big shots. The one whore who said she slept with Andrew claimed Epstein had paid her afterward. Or given her a gift, or present, however they referred to it. The reference to the girls as 'sex slaves' in the media is an absurd one given, by their own testimony, they were never forced to go there, never forced to do anything, never beaten, never forced to stay. And the only threat made was that they'd have to leave - which they didn't want to do. Nobody was their guardian or had any other power over them. They came and traded their bodies for drugs, booze, and living the high life around the rich and famous, not unlike many, many other girls since the fifties. The lawyer for the whores saw money in Andrew and hoped that just causing enough embarrassment would get them a payoff - which it did. He definitely didn't want to go to trial and have his client cross-examined. Presentism is just the sanctimonious virtue signaling of people who assume they would have acted completely differently given the opportunity and times. I wonder how many men, if invited to that island, would have turned down a cute young thing in a bikini that came onto them or asked for their birth certificate.

Nobody paid attention to it at that age (17). And if the cops wanted to arrest people for it they'd have to arrest the entire pantheon of rock and pop stars, including the remaining Beatles, Stones, Ledzeps, Floyds, Eagles and just about every other guy who ever had a hit record. Nobody was asking for ID when some chick with nice boobs was throwing herself at them.

This topic is ABOUT Epstein, in case you never noticed.

Pakistan has long been one of Canada's major source countries for immigrants. Yet no screening is done for immigrants other than criminal records. There is no effort to determine if the people coming over are culturally compatible with Canada because that has long been deemed 'racist' by the liberal elites. Any suggestion Canada's culture is in ANY way superior to any other culture in the world horrifies them. But Pakistan has one of one of the most misogynistic cultures in the world. This has led to mass rape gangs targeting 'infidels', mostly young western girls. The rape gangs were ignored for decades by media, police and politicians terrified of being accused of racism or islamophobia, but the news eventually got out and there have been numerous investigations and convictions. And Canada? Is this happening here? If it was you'd not hear about it. There is no way, no WAY our mainstream media would utter a peep about something like this. Certainly no government would, and the police respond to the government. We also don't publish statistics on those who commit crimes, including sexual assault. But it beggars belief this happens so much in the UK and not at all in Canada. How Pakistan’s rape culture led to the UK grooming gangs https://archive.is/iD6aE

I doubt Epstein was much different from Hefner. Pretty young girls were a commodity, and both of them made use of them. This idea that it's child molesting to have consensual sex with 17 and 16-year-olds didn't exist in previous decades. Hell, the age of consent in Canada was 14 up until Stephen Harper changed it. And girls as young as 15 appeared in British men's magazines naked. Topless page 3 girls were often 16. And I doubt you can find a rock star from the 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s who hasn't slept with girls that age and younger MANY, MANY times while on the road. If they had the body and were willing (or drunk or drugged out) few in the entertainment industry had much of an issue with it. I think Epstein was just the victim of changing times and an eager lawyer who wanted to make a lot of money, along with mercenary old whores who resented no longer being attractive and who wanted some of that cash themselves.

As the oil industry goes, so goes Alberta. And if you haven't noticed, we have a government in Ottawa that has been doing its best to strangle the oil industry for the last ten years. As a result, foreign investment has fled as international investors find more business friendly nations to invest in.

I'm all for retaliating with targeted tariffs on swing states and Republican states where we can do the most damage. That makes sense. It's what we did last time. This idea of escalating immediately into cutting electricity, oil, and critical metals, is just dumb. It's dumb squared. As for the oil, the main pipeline to the south goes through Michigan before going back up into Ontario and Quebec. Cutting it means cutting oil to Ontario and Quebec. Which, once again, is stupid squared. Just as stupid is cutting electricity from Quebec into mainly Democratic states in the northeast.

You don't understand that if they apply tariffs for oil imports they're already making it more expensive for themselves? Tariffs on oil imports will mean either they stop importing oil because it costs more than theirs or they just pay it. If they stop importing it they have to use more of theirs and stop exporting it. In any event, we either sell it to them or ship it to Japan or China. Same thing for lumber. They can't grow enough so they have to import lumber. If they make it more expensive, well, okay, that just increases the cost of building new homes there.

Trump is a CENSORED! moving steadily downhill as his mind melts with dementia. He's not going to outwit or outnegotiate anyone. He never really has been a big thinker. He bullies people he can bully, sucks up to those he can't, and cheats any way he can without getting caught. Trump barely remembers his kids. The point of going down there is talking to the people around him who whisper things into his ear. He has no ideas himself. His mind is just a festering blob of resentment towards the world at large.

There are no mirrors in your house, are there?

Who gives a shit? If they want to tax oil coming into their country to make it more expensive it's no skin off our nose. And if they want to buy less oil we'll ship it to Japan instead. What does that mean, exactly? I see Ford has gone down south several times speaking to various people in government and media. Is he a traitor too?

Harper would be the ultimate target and this country would be utterly shamed had this loony gotten him. It made perfect sense to get him away. The RCMP would have done the same to him if he'd been there. Those drugs you're taking are real downers. You got to find something that makes you happier. This makes no sense. If the Americans apply tariffs to goods imported from Canada we retaliate by doing the same to goods imported from the US. We don't touch energy.