mowich
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Posts posted by mowich
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On 11/2/2020 at 11:21 AM, taxme said:
BC has pretty much become the socialist/communist capital of Canada where fun has now been outlawed. If this farce of a Convid 19 lie is allowed to continue on here in BC and in the rest of Canada then we will all learn as to what it is like living in a communist country. And I can guarantee you that you ain't going to like it, pardner.
Just keep listening to those lying Canadian comrade politicians and the lying Canadian PRAVDA media, and those so called health lying experts like comrades Bonnie Henry and comrade T. Tam and you will end up with communism very soon.
When people can get out there and have fun like we once were able to do we were all happy and joyous. Look at us today? All going around and looking like a bunch of zombie buffoons wearing face diaper masks and social distancing and some even locking themselves down for fear of catching a non-existent real dangerous China virus.
I say that we should all get back to the old normal days and ways of doing things and let's all get out there and have fun and dam the consequences. Herd immunity is the answer to control this Convid 19 virus, not lock downs. Works for me.
"BC has pretty much become the socialist/communist capital of Canada......." I get a kick out of people who presume they have the right to speak for the population of province as if they were all in the grip of some great mind meld. Fact is, you don't even speak for a significant percentage of Vancouver's population let alone the entire province. FYI the Heartland of our province has proved time and again to be pretty darn conservative so your comment in totally baseless.
Fun is many things to many people. Those of us who were born prior to the advent of television know well how to keep ourselves happy and are managing to do so following all of Dr Henry's guidelines. So happiness isn't dead in our little corner of the world. It sad that such is not the case in yours.
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Yes. But only when I am well and truly stoned. ?
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On 11/18/2020 at 7:02 AM, Michael Hardner said:
Is this more spooky stuff ?
More like creepy. Watching Zuckerberg testify at the hearings certainly creeped me out. LOL
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On 11/18/2020 at 4:57 AM, sidewinder said:
You might become paranoid if you use facebook a lot and google "centra"
Then read this and make up your own mind
I was watching the hearings when Zuck was asked that question and almost laughed my butt off when he replied that he had no knowledge of it. As if. I found the hearings really informative but was not that surprised to hear about the tracking that goes on across platforms. That they are getting away with it - now that is alarming.
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10 hours ago, betsy said:
I'm having a hard time processing this latest news. It's questionable enough how come extending Christmas break for schools is "out of the question," but today the news report says that Quebec allows gatherings of up to 250 people in RED zones!
Quebec is among the top hardest hit province!
I don't know what's happening. Either our elected officials are running around like chickens with their heads cut off- clueless, really and just giving us so much talking point full of bs......
..............or, the conspiracy theories are true! That covid-19 is being used more for politics and isn't as serious as being portrayed by WHO, UN, liberal governments and media!
What is happening is that our elected officials are doing their best to make sure that Canadians get the latest updates on what where Canada is at in all jurisdictions with the virus, the latest on pandemic guidelines and how they are planning on getting more covid testing sites available. Have they been perfect - no but I do believe they are working in our best interests.
Conspiracy theories? Please, Betsy. Are you a flat-earther by chance? Just wondering.
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On 11/9/2020 at 7:37 PM, Moonlight Graham said:
I'M CHINESE MAN. What's baseball?
I gather you never saw the movie Field of Dreams. Check it out sometime. It would explain why the name Moonlight Graham brings the game of baseball immediately to mind.
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9 minutes ago, betsy said:
Joe doesn't have to drop dead! At his age (and his obvious cognitive decline), all they have to do is deem him unfit! I'll give him a full year - at the most. I don't expect a scandalous scenario - it will happen behind closed doors with the Dems brass. Joe will step down.
I bet that's always been the plan!
I'll give you this - I do believe that Harris was foisted upon Joe by the progressive arm of the party led by Saunders else why did he take so long to announce his running mate. His pressy was even postponed past the time it was to take place. Harris does share many of the aims of the progressives but she too will be unable to see them enacted by a Republican Senate. Were I you, I'd be praying that those Senate seat run-offs go in favor of the Republicans.
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1 minute ago, betsy said:
It's not fear, Mowich. It's being non-complacent.
A smug confidence that "this will not happen to me," has been proven wrong so many times. I bet, that's how a lot of countries had gone under socialist/communist regimes.
The US is a very long way from becoming a socialist/communist country, Betsy. The very fact that the current President got the second highest popular vote in the country's history should at least give you some comfort. What will be interesting to see is what happens in the mid-terms elections that have often seen the flipping of seats.
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Just now, betsy said:
Harris is part of that bunch. Look at her stance on issues.
The only chance that Harris will have to see the progressive agenda go forward is if Joe drops dead. Hopefully, that won't happen for many years. Look on the bright side, the Republicans have a chance of retaining control of the Senate if the run-offs in January come through for the Reps. With McConnell at the helm, the Dems have little chance of getting anything done let alone those put forward by the progressives. Executive orders only go so far and have time limits.
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7 hours ago, betsy said:
AOC's statement about having a list sounds ominous. In Communist regimes - people on the list, suddenly disappear.
Fear not, Betsy. The Cortez cohorts have little power within the party so they won't be disappearing anyone much as I am sure they would love too.
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2 minutes ago, betsy said:
I don't think they're centrists at all. That's what makes this so scary.....
The 'scary' part of the Democratic party are the Cortez bunch, Betsy. They are already demanding that Biden better tow their line. Poor Joe. Isn't even in office yet and he is facing divisions within his own party and the great divide within the country. The man doesn't need luck he needs a miracle.
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13 hours ago, WestCanMan said:
You spelled "Chinese" wrong
Biden plagiarized a bit of Trump's populist, common-sense message, but he's an influence-peddler at heart, and wherever the dirty money for the Bidens is is where his loyalty lies.
China's GDP growth will be meteoric over the next year.
There are a lot of decent points in that post, sorry to chop into this short summary, but I don't have time to get into the heart of it.
Seriously, do you think that Biden is really protectionist at heart? He's definitely going to screw his own country's oil & gas sector to please Greta Thunberg (Mnuchin's replacement), and no doubt Canada's as well.
Whether he is 'at heart' a protectionist is not at issue. He may very well see the problems inherent in closing the country's doors to free trade. However, he is bound by his party's policies which clearly do not align with free trade.
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On 11/9/2020 at 3:09 AM, betsy said:
I'm not asking for an opinion as to what SHOULD happen next. Lol. I'm not interested about what you personally think of the man - I know very well what anti-Trumps think of him, thank you.
Anyway....
If there is evidence of fraud - why shouldn't the candidate (regardless of who it is) take it up to the next step if the US system gives that option? Duh? A man who readily shrivels up and gives up his right just because of pressure from his opponent to do so, is not leader-material, imho.
But it is RATIONAL to say that I can't CONCLUSIVELY say that it's over. It could be taken to court, and it could drag on (or not). Is it just a bluff, or not? We will soon find out.
In the meantime, CONFIDENT Biden supporters ought to be celebrating instead of wasting time in forums right now, debating with still hopeful Trump supporters.
If........and so far that's a big 'if' evidence of fraud comes to light then all means should be taken to get to the bottom of it. It now appears that the DOJ will be investigating so let's leave it in there hands for now.
BTW, congratulating Biden/Harris on their 'contested' win does not make me a supporter. I am just happy to see that the centrists won out over the progressives.
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1 hour ago, WestCanMan said:
You seem to have a deep understanding of all this, and your writing is excellent all around.
Do you work in journalism?
No I am not a journalist, WestCan. I try my best to read as much material on both sides of an issue before forming an opinion and then commenting.
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Canada should beware Joe Biden’s ‘Buy American’ mentality
With our southern neighbours' recent election of Joe Biden, many commentators and interest groups have expressed relief at the arrival of this career politician with a calmer tone than his predecessor’s. But when it comes to economics, can we really expect a less protectionist president who will smooth trade relations with our country?
Like many international trade experts and diplomats, we do not think that this Democratic victory will necessarily mean freer trade between our two countries. While the disputes in the aluminum and steel sectors could settle down, several observations lead us to think that the famous “Buy American” mentality, which amounts to favouring protectionist measures meant to help – but that actually hurt – the American economy will be the new normal. The president-elect even made it one of his campaign slogans.
Within the Democratic Party, there is an anti-free-trade movement, fostered by the populist Bernie Sanders, that seems to be gaining ground despite the empirical economic evidence that discredits this 16th-century mercantilist vision. What’s more, Mr. Biden has openly admitted to being in favour of prohibiting Canadian companies from bidding on public infrastructure contracts at the state and municipal levels, something they currently can do.
Nor should we forget that Western Canada in particular will probably suffer, at least in certain respects, from the results of this election. Whereas Donald Trump had approved the Keystone XL pipeline that will provide more than 2,000 construction jobs to Albertans, Mr. Biden has promised to put an end to the energy project. Although Americans would lose quality jobs and economic activity that are sorely needed during this pandemic, this could also be another tough blow for Canadians.
Regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, it is hard to exaggerate how important trade with the United States is for Canada. In normal times, it accounts for 72.8 per cent of Canadian exports and 51.5 per cent of our imports.
Though the fact that we share a continent naturally facilitates trade and constitutes a mutual comparative advantage, this benefit can quickly dissipate owing to coercive protectionist measures and strained trade relations, as we have seen in the softwood lumber saga, where the two governments have been in mediation for years over tariffs. Turning inward has never promoted a general improvement in living standards.
Affected consumers must turn to other options, which consist of products that were presumably not their first choice because they were more expensive or of lower quality. Affected producers, for their part, have to deal with protectionist constraints and their attendant costs. Except for the specific companies or sectors protected by quotas and tariffs, everyone loses.
It’s not just a bilateral matter, either, since the United States imports raw materials and intermediate goods that it processes to then sell to us. Therefore, when U.S. trade with China or Europe deteriorates for political reasons, the products that they offer us generally become more expensive.
For example, the electronic devices we love, and on which you may be reading this, are made from dozens of components from all around the world, even if they are assembled in one specific location. If the trade relations between the countries that participate in the manufacture of such devices deteriorate, it is consumers who end up paying the price.
Free trade is more important than ever. Two-thirds of the tourists who visit Canada are American, and the COVID-19 health and political crisis has already reduced the tourism sector’s revenues by nearly $50-billion. With continued uncertainty regarding the anticipated arrival of a vaccine and the complete reopening of our borders, the free movement of goods is a lifeline we need to hang onto.
A retreat to protectionism is the last thing our two countries need.
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4 minutes ago, betsy said:
I can't say conclusively that it's over. We'll have to see what happens next.
What should happen next is for the great pretender to give it up. Exit gracefully and get on with what is left of his life. That however is a dim hope as this man has proven time and again to do exactly the opposite of what a sane intelligent caring human being would do. One might hope it won't come to the White House staff referred to by the President-Elect who are "well-equipped to deal with trespassers."
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While everyone appears to be focused on all these stalling tactics, I'm wondering just what the great pretender is actually up to. Joe won't be sworn in until January 21rst 2021. That gives the outgoing President plenty of time to do all manner of things not the least of which is issue pardons.
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8 minutes ago, betsy said:
One allegation is that people who have been dead were found to have risen up to vote. Surely they can check that.
I don't know of many elections in my lifetime where the dead weren't said to have voted. If I remember correctly, there have even been a couple of dead folks elected.
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A Big Win for Democrats in California Came With a Gut Check for Liberals
Joe Biden received one of the highest margins in the nation in California, but a look at how the state’s ballot measures were decided shows a more complex picture of the electorate.
OAKLAND, Calif. — The message that California voters sent in the presidential election was unequivocal: With almost two-thirds of ballots counted so far going for Joseph R. Biden Jr., the nation’s most populous state put up mammoth numbers for the Democrats. But dig a little deeper into the results and a more complex picture of the Golden State voter emerges, of strong libertarian impulses and resistance to some quintessentially liberal ideas.
In a series of referendums, voters in California rejected affirmative action, decisively shot down an expansion of rent control and eviscerated a law that gives greater labor protections for ride-share and delivery drivers, a measure that had the strong backing of labor unions. A measure that would have raised taxes on commercial landlords to raise billions for a state that sorely needs revenue also seemed on track for defeat.
The full force of the election results provided something of a gut check for liberals in a state that plays a big role in the Democratic Party and often offers insights into where the rest of the nation might be headed.
“The results in California show the Democrats that you can go too far,” said Bob Shrum, a former Democratic strategist and the director of the Dornsife Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California. “California is a very liberal state that is now resistant to higher taxes and welcoming to the new gig economy, which is where the industry was created.”
That is not to say California is lurching rightward. The state is unwaveringly Democratic up and down the ranks of its government. Democrats have a supermajority in the Legislature, and the governor and lieutenant governor are Democrats. Even the state’s chief justice, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, quit the Republican Party two years ago and became an independent.
Pockets of unambiguous liberalism stayed strong on Tuesday with San Francisco voters saying yes to liberal priorities including affordable housing, police oversight and new taxes on companies whose highest-paid manager makes more than 100 times the level paid to its local workers.
And on many ballot measures, California voters validated the state’s liberal reputation. They rejected an expansion of penalties for some crimes and restored voting rights for felons who are on parole, securing the state’s position as a national leader in reducing mass incarceration and reforming its criminal justice system.
This year’s mixed results, however, were not an anomaly. California has always had competing impulses. The state that is home to Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, also produced icons of conservatism including Ronald Reagan. Some of the most prominent conservative voices during the Trump presidency hail from California, including Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader; Devin Nunes, the outspoken congressman and staunch Trump ally; and Stephen Miller, the hard-line anti-immigration White House adviser.
This has put California on the front lines of many political battles. The affirmative action measure on the ballot this year, for example, dated to 1996. That year, 55 percent of the state’s electorate voted to ban the use of race, ethnicity, national origin or gender in public hiring, contracting and university admissions.
The proposition that California voted on this time would have repealed the ban and was supported by a who’s who of the Democratic Party in the state, including Kamala Harris, the senator and vice-presidential candidate. But it was defeated by almost the same margin with which it had passed originally.
Analysts saw a reflection of the state’s demographic complexity in the vote.
“It’s always difficult to do proposition campaigns in a state of 40 million people,” said Anthony Rendon, a Democrat and the speaker of the California Assembly. “But our racial and ethnic groups are more complicated and divided than they used to be, in a bunch of different ways.”
Since 2014, no one racial or ethnic group has constituted a majority of California’s population. Thirty-nine percent of California residents are Latino, 37 percent are white, 15 percent are Asian-American, 6 percent are Black and fewer than 1 percent are Native American or Pacific Islander, according to the 2018 American Community Survey.
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11 hours ago, BeaverFever said:
More pizzagate fake allegation bullshit, which has become the bread and butter of the Republican Party these past 5 years.
All of these fake vote fraud claims and baseless lawsuits aren’t really an effort to win a Trump presidency, their real goal is to permanently destroy the credibility of US democracy, for the short-term goal of sabotaging the inevitable Biden presidency
Hillary Clinton would have probably been less than a footnote in US history but now thanks to Republican’s destruction of democracy she’ll be forever remembered in the history books as the last presidential candidate to peacefully concede defeat.
Well if Joe makes it through his four years and decides to step down or is defeated in the next election, I fully expect that he will gracefully exit the White House. Just sayin'
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22 hours ago, BeaverFever said:
Trump should have lost in a landslide. The fact that he didn’t speaks volumes
Thu 5 Nov 2020 18.11 GMTLast modified on Thu 5 Nov 2020 22.16 GMT
In the lead-up to the 2020 election, Democrats were extremely confident in Joe Biden’s prospects. With his comfortable lead in national polls, there was talk of a Biden landslide, a giant “blue wave” that could turn Texas blue. Even though the polls had been off in the 2016 election, media commentators reassuredaudiences that Biden’s lead was different – far stronger and more stable – than Hillary Clinton’s had been.
As of this writing, it does look as if Biden will squeak his way into the White House. But only just. And no “blue wave” materialized. Far from turning Texas blue, Biden appears to have severely underperformed relative to Hillary Clinton in some heavily Hispanic areas. Democrats have not retaken the US Senate and failed to knock out a single Republican in the House of Representatives. Millions more people voted for Trump than in 2016, and it became disturbingly clear that even if Trump himself is booted from office, “Trumpism” is alive and well.
There was no need for it to be this way. Donald Trump has badly mishandled the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. The economy is in recession. The Republican war on the Affordable Care Act seems more heartless than ever as millions lose their insurance.
Trump did not run a good campaign. He botched the first debate. He squanderedhis campaign cash. His messaging against Joe Biden was unfocused and often incoherent, simultaneously trying to paint him as a radical Antifa-sympathizing socialist and a corrupt corporate establishment figure. At a time when the economy was voters’ No 1 issue, Trump was focused on the emails of Biden’s ne’er-do-well son, Hunter. A campaign that presented voters with a clear and compelling alternative should have easily defeated Trump.
But Biden didn’t offer a clear and compelling alternative. He was a weak candidate from the start, so much so that even some of his allies were worried what would happen if he won the primary. Biden, like Hillary Clinton before him, represented the corporate wing of the Democratic party; he loudly defended the private health insurance industry and the fracking industry from attacks by the left. He ran away from proposals favored by the Democratic base like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. He didn’t show much interest in courting core constituencies like Latino voters (reportedly, the Biden campaign did not consider them part of its “path to victory”, which helps explain the losses in Texas and Florida). Biden didn’t even put much energy into the campaign; at crucial moments when Trump’s team were knocking on a million doors a week, Biden’s was reportedly knocking on zero. His ground game in important swing states like Michigan was “invisible”.
To many on the left, then, Biden’s lackluster performance is no surprise. Yes, Trump could have been resoundingly defeated. But 2016 proved once and for all that the Democratic establishment simply doesn’t have a message that can effectively counter Trump. The party leadership ignored the lessons that should have been learned four years ago. Instead, Democratic strategy is the very definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
We know how Democrats can win again. Thomas Frank, in his vital book, Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?, explains that Democrats need to get back to being a party that offers something meaningful to working people. We know that voting Republican is no indication that voters actually want the agenda the Republican party will pursue in office. Fox News polling indicates voters want universal healthcare, abortion rights and a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants. Florida voters, even as they selected Donald Trump, also opted to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. The Democrats do not need to propose insipid half-measures when the data indicates that the public are fully on board with a progressive agenda.
This is why many of us on the left were pushing so hard for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. We believed that he had a winning formula for combating Trumpism, that the conventional wisdom that centrism is “pragmatic” was totally upside down. Bernie knew how to speak to Trump’s own voters, he could go to a Fox town hall and have the attendees cheering for single-payer healthcare, or win over a crowd at Liberty University. We believed that in a general election, he would be able to move the kinds of discontented anti-establishment voters who put Trump in office, and would have dominated in the rust belt states where Biden is just barely squeaking by.
That theory is untested; we never got a chance to compare what a left candidate could do against Trump with what Clinton and Biden managed. But the disappointing Democratic performances in both 2016 and 2020 should tell us that something is deeply, troublingly wrong with the party. A reality TV clown who supports policies most Americans hate (eg tax cuts for the rich) should not be coming anywhere near winning a presidential election. Yet he is. Why?
Blaming the voters simply will not do. This is a failure of leadership. Those responsible for it need to be held accountable. Unfortunately, it looks like some in the party will learn the wrong lessons. Even though dozens of democratic socialists won their elections this year while centrists struggled, there is a contingent among Democrats whose solution to any problem is the same: become more like Republicans.
Already, there is talk that they need to embrace tax cuts and run away from the “socialism” label. In other words, double down on what they were already doing. Those who think that is the lesson may simply be “unteachable” – a word George Orwell used to describe the old British cavalry generals who still insisted on using horses long after the invention of automatic weapons, and could not be persuaded that a horse is not useful against a machine gun. Today’s Democratic leaders are like those generals. If 2016 couldn’t persuade them that they were wrong, this won’t either. Nothing ever will.
It is time for a whole new approach, not a double dose of the existing one. We need to take the right lessons from this election, the ones that didn’t take in 2016. First, don’t trust polls, and don’t get complacent or assume the tides of history will carry you to victory. Second, Trumpism will not “self-destruct”: you can’t simply run against Trump, you need a powerful alternative vision that actually gives people what they say they want and fights for something worth believing in.
"Democratic strategy is the very definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. " That one sentence sums it up for the poor Democratic performance in this election. It encompasses the many failures of the party and the failure of the 'blue wave' to materialize.
Good article Beaver. Thanks for the share.
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11 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:
Yup.
Again the pollsters were completely wrong.
Quelle surprise. Ever since the pollsters called for a huge NDP win in my province of BC a few elections ago only to see the Liberals win a majority, I stopped following any polls.
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1 hour ago, Argus said:
Here's part of my take. I was confident the Democrats would win up until their primaries. As soon as I saw that parade of identity clowns vying for the presidency I knew they were in trouble. One midget after another stepped onto the stage with no qualifications at all other than their identity group.
I"m a woman!"
"I'm a black mayor!"
"Yeah, but I'm a gay mayor!"
"I'm a black woman!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm part black, part Indian! AND a woman!"
"Well I'm Asian!"
"Hey, I'm part Asian, part Black!"
"Hey, I'm Hispanic! Look at me, look at me!"
I mean, these clowns spent a whole debate on transgender rights.I knew all that would piss off the majority of whites. Nobody cares about the identity crap but progressives. What I failed to fully appreciate, I think, was how unimpressed so many Blacks and Hispanics were. As revealed in a poll some time back, Blacks wanted law and order, not defunded police. But that's not what the Democrats were talking about. They became the full throated identity party, talking endlessly about racism, transgenderism, gay rights, cultural appropriation, reparations, critical race theory and white privilege. None of which appeals much to black or Hispanic voters. I think the only thing most people cared about were the economy, covid, and law and order. Trump failed on the second, but the Democrats failed on the third. The first was a tossup. The economy was good, but all Trump contributed was a big tax cut which was paid for entirely with borrowed money.
Could not agree more with your take on the nonsensical reliance of the Dems on identity politics, Argus but in that they are no different than justdim and his crew of sycophants who cater to the same crowd.
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5 hours ago, WestCanMan said:
A few final thoughts on this election:
1) This Biden win was definitely the result that Iran, Russia and China were hoping for. Israel is screwed.
2) I hope the economy doesn't completely tank under Biden but I'm looking at the next 4 years as being very lean.
3) One thing worth noting, the DC vote was something like 93% for Biden. All of those swamp-rats know exactly which side their bread is buttered on.
4) This is such a disappointing result. A stuttering, senile, influence-peddling, kid-sniffing creep just became the POTUS. Democracy is failing, utterly.
Still watching the results coming in, WestCan - no victory for either candidate yet as several states are way too close to call. What is crystal clear is that the projected blue wave crashed on the shores of reality and the Biden/Harris ticket was hardly the best choice for Dems.
Whatever happened to fun anymore?
in Provincial Politics in Canada
Posted
I wonder. Would the same apply to those who lived under Nazi rule when they hear anyone on the right labelled as such?