What About The Common Good?

One of the things that has most disturbed me about this election campaign is the emphasis both the Liberals and the Conservatives have put on so-called cheque-book issues. Whether it is Mr. Trudeau's constant references to "the middle class and those working hard to join it," or Andrew Scheer's promises to put more money into people's pockets, it is clear that the needs of the individual are being targeted almost exclusively.

While I understand very well that affordability of housing, education, etc. are vital issues, they have been stressed at the expense of the common good. Are we really a society if all we are concerned about is ourselves?

Writing in the print edition of today's Star, Salvatore Amenta of Stouville, Ontario offers the following:

As we approach another election, we are being asked yet again to think of ourselves first.

Will my taxes go up or down? Will there be more money left in my pocket? Will my job be protected? Will my values be upheld? In short, what’s in this election for me?

These questions are perfectly valid and quickly attract the attention of voters on television, social and print media. However, they ignore the common good.

What’s good for our future, our grandchildren, our planet and only habitat? In short, what’s good for Canada?

These questions are harder to answer, but they are worth asking. Before going to the ballot box, let’s remember former U.S. president John F. Kennedy’s advice: “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

Give Me Your Frightened Masses

Run, children, run, to your polling stations!

H/t Theo Moudakis

Meanwhile, for those made of sterner stuff, there is an insightful analysis by Larry Kazdan of Vancouver of what should truly frighten all of us:

Today’s unemployment rate of 5.5 per cent may be considered “rock bottom,” but unemployment after the Second World War until the mid-1950s averaged less than 3 per cent. However, the rise of neo-liberalism in the 1980s coincided with the normalization of higher unemployment rates. Fiscal and monetary settings that led to more jobless and new laws relating to minimum wages and labour standards, union organizing and strike rules, and import of foreign workers, all combined to reduce pressure on wages.

The link between higher productivity and concurrent wage gains was broken, and consequently more profits accrued to capital.

The suppression of wages had another benefit, since workers could be enticed to borrow in order to maintain lifestyles, leading to another source of increased profits for the financial industry. And indebted workers in a tepid economy are fearful of leaving their jobs since replacements may be hard to find.

Affordability worries today are by no means the result of the boom-bust nature of Canada’s economy or other factors beyond the control of politicians. On the contrary, the squeeze on working and middle class families was carefully engineered by Conservative and Liberal governments to benefit the economic elites which they represent.

Ain't It The Truth?

Having resisted the fear-mongering that passes as 'strategic voting,' and having already cast my ballot, I offer the following for those still to exercise their franchise next week:

Sometimes There Really Is A Conspiracy

Chevron, Exxon, BP and Shell: names that are familiar to almost all of us. What we might be less familiar with is the role they and about 16 other fossil fuel giants have played historically in ignoring the denying the climate crisis that has come to engulf the world.

Matthew Taylor and Jonathon Watts write that those companies are responsible for more than a third of greenhouse gas emissions today:

New data from world-renowned researchers reveals how this cohort of state-owned and multinational firms are driving the climate emergency that threatens the future of humanity, and details how they have continued to expand their operations despite being aware of the industry’s devastating impact on the planet.

The analysis, by Richard Heede at the Climate Accountability Institute in the US, the world’s leading authority on big oil’s role in the escalating climate emergency, evaluates what the global corporations have extracted from the ground, and the subsequent emissions these fossil fuels are responsible for since 1965 – the point at which experts say the environmental impact of fossil fuels was known by both industry leaders and politicians.

The top 20 companies on the list have contributed to 35% of all energy-related carbon dioxide and methane worldwide, totalling 480bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) since 1965.

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of this report is that these companies knew, as far back as the 1960s, that they were degrading the earth in a way that future generations would pay a heavy price. And they have been working hard ever since to fund an array of climate-change deniers to conceal this truth.

The following brief video explains the situation succinctly:



It has been said that even paranoid people have enemies. In a similar vein, sometimes those who shout "CONSPIRACY!" are, sadly, correct.

UPDATED:This Is How To Do It

With our typical timidity, Canadians are notoriously reluctant to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to climate change. Sure, we recently had very loud and proud displays of concern during September's climate strike, but once that happened, one wonders how to sustain any momentum.

Perhaps we can take some tips from the Brits who, despite their own Brexit worries, seem to have found their focus through ongoing Extinction Rebellion demonstrations.

Extinction Rebellion protesters have shut off large parts of Westminster as they began a planned two-week shutdown of central London.

The Metropolitan police said 135 people had been arrested. Westminster Bridge, Lambeth Bridge, Trafalgar Square and Whitehall were all blocked off as throngs of people demonstrated about the lack of meaningful action to tackle the climate crisis.

In Trafalgar Square a hearse was parked carrying a coffin that said: “Our future.” The driver had used a D-lock to attach himself to the steering wheel while other protesters attached themselves to the bottom of the vehicle and some lay in the road.

Yards from Downing Street, protesters blocked off Whitehall and the Embankment was shut off for about four hours outside the Ministry of Defence (MoD) by activists who attached themselves to cars before being removed by police using buzzsaws.

Among those arrested on Monday on Victoria Embankment was 81-year-old Sarah Lasenby, a Quaker and retired social worker from Oxford. She said: “For 21 years my main concern has been to help get rid of UK nuclear weapons. I am still keen to do this but once I came across XR I was so relieved to have something I could do about the ghastly state we have got our planet in.

“The whole thing is so urgent that it is imperative the government should take serious actions and put pressure on other states and global powers to radically reduce the use of fossil fuels even if this means we need to reduce our comfort at home and so much flying.”

UPDATE: Then again, I may have written too soon.

A Sign Of The Times

This, from Chris Cowley on Twitter, is timely. Perhaps an Amber Alert is also in order?

Ontario schools are in turmoil and we can't find premier
@fordnation!

Please help us.

If you have any information on Mr. Ford's whereabouts, please encourage him to return to work immediately and give a fair deal to #CUPE education workers.

A Weapon Against Fake News

Living in an age when critical-thinking skills are increasingly hard to find, anything acting as a bulwark against the ignorance and stupidity that seems to inform public 'debate' is welcome. Natalie Turvey writes about a weapon that sounds promising.

While misinformation, memes, clickbait and outright lies proliferate across our online feeds, especially in this election season, Canadians are not powerless to fight back.

There’s no question it can be difficult to distinguish between fact-based real news and fake news and those who want to mislead and confuse us are becoming more sophisticated every day.Research shows that:

-90 per cent of Canadians admit to falling for fake news

-Fake news stories spread six times faster than the truth

-Only 33 per cent of Canadians regularly try to confirm if the news we see is real

-40 per cent of Canadians report finding it difficult to distinguish between truth and misinformation in the news

-More than half of respondents (53 per cent) have come across stories recently where they believe facts were twisted to push an agenda

Help in fighting these daunting numbers is now available:

The Canadian Journalism Foundation has launched a campaign called “Doubt it? Check it. Challenge it.” The campaign aims to give Canadians the skills and tools to combat fake news and information. We have built tools and tips to empower people and it all lives on DoubtIt.ca.

Having checked it out, I can attest that the site offers a wealth of resources to determine whether or not 'news' is genuine, some of which are common sense, and others are resources that many may be unaware of. There is even a fake news quiz. (I took it and scored 9/10)

Essentially, Doubtit.ca revolves some simple steps:

[F]irst, if a story doesn’t seem right, trust that instinct; second, check it out, look for other sources to verify; and third, if it is fake news, call it out.

Of the three steps, the first — Doubt it? — may be the most important. More than half of us have come across stories we think are fake. So, our Spidey senses are working. Often, we just need to take a breath before we repost something and ask ourselves “does this feel right?”

If it doesn’t, there are simple ways to “check it.” First, read beyond the headline. In today’s news, headlines don’t always match the content of the story. They can be much more provocative, to attract clicks, than the story that follows.

Next, take a look at what surrounds the story you’re reading. Do the other stories on the site seem far-fetched? Are they satirical, or all about conspiracies? If so, you’ve found your answer.

And finally, if you doubt a story’s claims, do a simple online search to see if anyone else is reporting it. If it’s true, those claims will be covered by other, reputable news sources. The same goes for images. You can search those online too, and you’ll quickly learn whether the image in that meme is real or fake.

The final responsibility we have, if we are at all active on social media, is to identify fake news when we find it. I have done that many times on Facebook (but I always like to frame it tactfully so as not to offend the poster).

As we enter the crunch point for our election, detecting and exposing fake news is paramount to the health of our democracy. If we remain silent, we give consent to lies, distortions and malicious manipulation. That is something none of us could ever be proud of.

Donald Trump, Exposed

I generally like to operate my blog with a certain level of decorum and language. However, there are exceptions to that principle, which you will see in the following.

I just discovered someone named Chip Franklin, an American who operates a website called Inside The Beltway, which is described thus:

Inside The Beltway is a collaboration of journalists, broadcasters, and assorted professionals, who have banded together to create a levee against the rising tide of lies and distortions that threaten our democracy and our sanity. That may sound dramatic, but how else do you characterize the willingness of the American public to believe in the most absurd narratives? For us, it’s an obligation to the truth. And if that sounds a little sanctimonious, that’s on you.

Be warned that the following contains profanity that may disturb some:

The Whistleblower from chip franklin on Vimeo.

Trump- Wizard of Odd from chip franklin on Vimeo.

Trump_ Just How Stupid_ from chip franklin on Vimeo.

“If You’re A Liberal, You’ve Got To Be Very Nervous”

So says pollster Nik Nanos, after a poll showing young people's support for Justin Trudeau dropping dramatically after his recent chat with Greta Thunberg during her visit to Canada.

Polling data from Nanos Research shows that the proportion of voters aged 18 to 29 who cite Trudeau as their preferred prime minister fell from nearly 35 per cent to a little more than 24 per cent within 24 hours.

The Liberal leader met with Thunberg on Friday while the prominent activist was in Montreal for a climate-change march that was attended by hundreds of thousands of people.

The 16-year-old Swede took Trudeau to task, telling him he wasn’t doing enough to fight climate change. Though that is her standard message for any world leader, Nanos said he still saw it as a risk for Trudeau to agree to the meeting.

The results seem to indicate a narrowing of the gap between Trudeau and Scheer (a climate-change denier in all but name), and a small uptick of support for the Green Party.

While those two parties appear to be battling to win the most seats on Oct. 21, another fight is underway further down in the polls.

The NDP are polling at 13.18 per cent and the Greens at 12.63 per cent, likely bringing the two parties into fierce competition.

“It’s like a double horse race … the horse race to win and the horse race to place third,” Nanos said.

The Greens have been hovering around 13 per cent for several days now – their highest level ever, and approximately double the support they were pulling during the early days of the campaign.

“The last week has been very good for the Green Party,” Nanos said.

While I am long past the stage of holding out much hope for our collective future, whatever sliver there is resides in the awakening consciousness of young people, who seem to see with a perspicacity denied to many who, blinded by ideology and past practices, keep voting the same way but hoping for different results.

And that, of course, is a mere variant of a famous definition:

"It Is Not Fair"

H/t Greg Perry

I suspect the following letter by a young person expresses the angst of an entire generation:

I had hoped my final years in high school would go smoothly. But instead of stressing over university applications, I worry if it is even worth it to go through all this trouble.

Why should I study more and look for future career options when the world will crumble soon? When I receive my diploma and prepare for interviews, my window’s view will be of dying trees and collapsed houses.

It is not fair that I am compelled to strike for my time on Earth. It is not fair that I cannot even dream of a future without images of a dying home. It is not fair that my parents had the chance to bring me to this Earth, only to say goodbye together in a few year's time. I do not want to strike continuously for some higher official to just acknowledge the problem. I want them to see it and fix it.

Give me a chance. A chance to live and dream, without vivid images of organisms dying. No more is school my priority. My priority is just to have a chance to live until I reach my final years in life. That is all I want and that is not fair.

Zainab Muneer, Ajax

Greta And Justin

H/t Graeme McKay

Given the massive turnout for yesterday's climate strike, one can perhaps be forgiven for questioning the motives of Justin Trudeau marching in the Montreal rally. While the pipeline purchaser continues to insist twinning the Trans Mountain conduit is vital to his plan for saving the planet, some are not so easily fooled.

Greta Thunberg is one of them:

The 16-year-old Swede met privately with the Canadian prime minister but later told a news conference with local indigenous leaders that he was “not doing enough” to curb greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.

“My message to all the politicians around the world is the same. Just listen and act on the current best available science,” she said.

But Mr. Trudeau is nothing if not relentless in his rhetoric:

The prime minister said after meeting Thunberg and pledging to fund the planting of 2bn trees: “I agree with her entirely. We need to do more.”

Platitudes and posturing will not save the planet. Only earnest, sustained and concerted action hold out a modicum of hope.

Fat chance of that happening, eh?

Campaign 2019 - Where Is The Truth To Be Found?

It is perhaps to state the obvious that political campaigns are a kind of Rorschach Test. We respond to candidates' claims, promises and outright lies to a large extent through the filter of our values, our biases, our philosophy and our experiences. That is us just being human. Sadly, however, whatever intellectual capacities we may possess often are cast aside as we make impassioned choices based upon the above.

Critical thinking is the main casualty here.

A case in point is the carbon tax. All of the disinformation about the levy, from Doug Ford claiming it will lead to recession to Andrew Scheer averring it will make everyone poorer, often finds a ready, even Pavlovian, audience. The following brief news item from Global News attempts to set the record straight.



Our democracy demands that each person has the right to vote. There is nothing within our system that can make that vote an intelligent, informed one.

Connecting The Dots

While concern grows daily about the increasing toll climate change is exacting, people still have a hard time connecting it with their daily practices. Sadly, this cognitive dissonance is being facilitated by poor media coverage of the primary cause of our many natural disasters. The following Global News report addresses this pressing issue.



Additional communication resources can be found here and here.

Fool Me Once

It would be nice to believe that Team Trudeau's newly-announced commitment to climate change mitigation in the form of net-zero emissions by 2050 were a heart-felt response to the latest reports about the peril the world is in, or the result of being deeply moved by the impassioned declarations of Greta Thunberg, the brave lass who has become the conscience of the world.

Doubtlessly, Trudeau's fan clubs throughout the land will hail the leader's proclamation as yet another reason to vote Liberal in the upcoming election. Those given to less emotion and more critical thinking will remember the old adage, Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. And there is much basis to be skeptical rather than rhapsodic on this issue.

First, voters will remember Justin's betrayal of his avowal that 2015 would be the last election under the fiat past the post system, an oath quickly abandoned after a brief period of inadequate consultation with the public.

Then, of course, there was his purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline to double the capacity to ship the world's dirtiest oil to the West Coast. It was also a massive corporate bailout of Kinder Morgan Canada, part of an ongoing pattern of neoliberal policies of this government.

Finally, there is the whiff of deathbed desperation in Trudeau's announcement, given the polling numbers that show the Liberals and the Conservatives very close, with some support bleeding off to the NDP and the Green Party, the latter of which has a long-history of policy purity when it comes to environmental issues.

However, probably one of the greatest reasons to be suspicious of the liberals new 'policy' is its lack of detail, as reported by Alex Ballingall:

...even as he declined to outline specific policies to slash emissions in an unprecedented way, Trudeau was adamant that a re-elected Liberal government would break with Canada’s track record of failure to meet climate targets by “exceeding” its commitment under the international Paris Agreement and achieving “net zero emissions” by the middle of the century.

“This will be a huge opportunity for Canadians,” he said, pointing to the possibilities for economic growth in the renewable energy and clean tech sectors.

“It will require us to slash our emissions, transform our economy and use the power of nature — like planting trees and protecting ecosystems — to bring us to net zero.

“It’s an ambitious target, but it’s doable.”

The new “net zero” target brings the Liberals in line with what the New Democrats and Greens have already pledged if they form government after the Oct. 21 election.

Sound public policy is not made on the back of an envelop. Credible policy is not an emergency response in the middle of a political campaign because someone has detected what way the proverbial winds are blowing. And good policy cannot emerge from an attempt to cynically manipulate the public into voting for your party.

Our country and our planet deserve much, much better.

Some Heavy Lifting

H/t Theo Moudakis

Climate Refugees On The Move

We have been told countless times that one of the mainstays of our troubled future will be climate refugees, those fleeing their homelands due to environmental destruction, be it caused by drought, flood, or wildfire. For people tempted to see this as a problem only their descendants will have to confront, the following report will be both jarring and sobering.

Please begin at the 10:15 mark:

This Speaks To My Cynical Heart

H/t Greg Perry

Young People Speak With One Voice

And that voice is growing ever louder:

The History Of Blackface

For anyone who may be puzzled about the uproar over Justin Trudeau's forays into brown and black face, I strongly recommend the following, which provides a historical context for what are inherently (whether one realizes it or not) racist acts:



For a deeper dive into the topic, take a look at this:

Natural Climate Solutions - Protect, Restore, Fund

While it would be dishonest to suggest that I harbour any real hope for the future, I admire deeply those with the strength of character, vision, and resilience to keep fighting the good fight on climate change. Well-known activist Greta Thunberg and Guardian journalist George Monbiot remind us that an important ingredient in climate-change mitigation is nature itself:

The protection and restoration of living ecosystems such as forests, mangroves and seagrass meadows can repair the planet’s broken climate but are being overlooked, Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot have warned in a new short film.

Natural climate solutions could remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as plants grow. But these methods receive only 2% of the funding spent on cutting emissions, say the climate activists.

The following short video offers a concise overview of what they are advocating:

Closer Than We Think

It is probably to state the obvious that, being a tribal and insular species, we tend to be less moved by disasters when they occur far from our shores. But counting on catastrophe to stay away from our immediate environs is becoming an increasingly difficult assumption. As the following report from NBC's Al Roker makes clear, geographic and economic disruption is closer than we care to think:

Climate in Crisis

If you really want a detailed assessment of anything, print is always your best source. For example, today's Star details the horrendous changes taking place in the Arctic thanks to the record-breaking temperatures occurring there.

If, however, you want a quick overview of what is happening in the North, take a look at the following report by NBC's Lester Holt:



Finally, if you have the heart for it, read how our existential crisis is playing a role in helping people decide whether they want to bring children into this world.

The Media Awaken

To put it concisely, owing to a sense of general disillusionment, I have been taking a break from my blog, a break that is likely to continue with some exceptions, as in the following.

A large number of news outlets have banded together under the name Covering Climate Now, their mission, to provide better reporting on the climate crisis. While I fear that this collaboration will only turn out to be a substitute for, rather than a spur to, action on the crisis, I plan to link to stories that suggest Americans are becoming increasingly aware of the dangers posed by it. And let's face it; unless the U.S. and other populous nations take this seriously, nothing substantive can happen to mitigate the disaster we are now witnessing on an almost daily basis.

The first story comes from NBC Nightly News:

UPDATED: Uh, Uh. Trudeau Enthusiasts Won't Like This

Start at the 1:40 mark to see what I mean. To whet your appetite, here are some viewer comments:

What an awesome way to drop that Saudi Arabia thing. Hasan's show just keeps getting better and better.

The look on his face after that question! He thought they were gonna joke about his cool socks!

Canada selling weapons of mass death to Saudi Arabia is them just following Americans lead.

Trudeau is the Canadian Obama. They both campaigned as progressives but as soon as they got in they turned into conservative establishment centrists who cater to the status quo and big oil.

This has got to be the worst condemnation of msm journalists today, they got upstaged by a comedian.




UPDATE: The Star's Venay Menon offers his take on the interview:

When I was a kid, this one time we were driving through Pennsylvania late at night when a fawn suddenly appeared in the headlights of our station wagon. Since my father maddeningly drove under the speed limit — and there was no traffic on the interstate — he was able to brake without incident. But that adorable creature just stood there for a good 30 seconds, motionless, unsure of what to do next.

It seemed so helpless and lost in the chaos.

I was reminded of it while watching Netflix’s Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj on Sunday. Trudeau might as well buy himself a pair of antlers and a bushy tail before Halloween. Just based on the moments of awkward silence and the reaction shots in which he looked absolutely paralyzed with fear, he was that fawn.

What Trudeau’s inner circle probably didn’t realize when it thought this interview — and global exposure via Netflix — was a great idea was that much of the really damning material would come from taped segments. In between clips of Minhaj’s sit-down with Trudeau, the comedian also blitzed his in-studio audience with facts, observations and timelines that portrayed Trudeau as a scandal-ridden leader who speaks out of both sides of his mouth. The show went after Trudeau over the SNC-Lavalin scandal. It raised the issue of ethics violations. It more or less called Trudeau a fraud on the environment. It condemned him over Canada’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Venon concludes that regarding the Trudeau cachet, the bloom is off the rose. I agree wholeheartedly.

UPDATED: A Call For Resistance

Here in Ontario Premier Doug Ford, not content to have a taxpayer-funded propaganda channel, has mandated that all gas stations must display stickers advancing the government's attack on carbon-pricing. No doubt a constitutional issue, this compelled political speech is not going down well with everyone.

May we all take inspiration from the following:

.@CHCHTV @CHCHNews provincially mandated Federal Carbon Tax info-sticker are popping up at gas stations everywhere starting today. #hamont pic.twitter.com/sPdwuiVfJ6

— Phil Perkins (@PhilPerkinsCHCH) August 30, 2019

UPDATE: Here is someone else's strategy.

The Koch Legacy

Following the death last week of David Koch, media coverage, I found, left much to be desired. MSNBC filled its two-minute report with fulsome praise of the man's philanthropy, with nary a word about his rapacious, insatiablee evil, massive climate-change denial funding being one of his most detestable and diabolical projects. Ditto for Global National.

Happily, the redoubtable Guardian showed no such timidity in assessing Koch's legacy:

Koch Industries, a private company, is the United States’ 17th-largest producer of greenhouse gases and the 13th-biggest water polluter, according to research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst – ahead of oil giants Exxon Mobil, Occidental Petroleum and Phillips 66. The conglomerate has committed hundreds of environmental, workplace safety, labor and other violations. It allegedly stole oil from Indian reservations, won business in foreign countries with bribery, and one of its crumbling butane pipelines killed two teenagers, resulting in a nearly $300m wrongful death settlement. The dangerous methane leakage, carbon emissions, chemical spills and other environmental injustices enacted by Koch’s companies have imperiled the planet and allegedly brought cancer to many people.

Koch's separation from the rest of humanity was profound. Evil oligarch that he was, he cared not a whit for the travails of others, having never experienced them himself, all the while calling himself a self-made man, despite the fact that he and his brother inherited the family business.

From the perspective of many, however, his and brother Charles' greatest evil revolved around climate change:

Not only did Koch help unleash countless metric tons of greenhouse gases from the earth, he was a key funder of climate change denialism, stiff-arming scientists in order to further plunder the earth he was destroying. Revelations in Christopher Leonard’s new book, Kochland, show that Koch played an even greater role in funding climate change denialism than we previously knew. As we careen towards a climate catastrophe that seems more and more likely to happen within the next 11 years, we can rightly pin a portion of the blame on David and his brother.

In the play Julius Caesar, Marc Antony says: The evil that men do lives after them;/The good is oft interred with their bones. In the case of David Koch, that is both meet and just. As the Guardian concludes,

Death and destruction. That is David Koch’s legacy.

Given The World's Dire State

... it's time for a bit of a laugh. Enjoy.

Not Nearly Enough

For those who take a measure of pride in the fact that Canada has put a price on carbon, one that is essentially painless, by the way, thanks to the federal rebate, here is some sobering news: Canada ranks among the worst countries in its efforts to combat climate change.

The Climate Action Network, a global association of more than 1,300 climate groups, issued a report card on the climate plans of the G7 nations ahead of the leaders’ summit in France this weekend.

The report card says Canada’s current policies are consistent with global warming exceeding 4 C compared to pre-industrial levels, more than twice the stated goal of the Paris agreement of staying as close to 1.5 C as possible. The United States and Japan are also both in the 4 C category, while the other four G7 members, France, Ital
y, Germany and the United Kingdom, have policies consistent with more than 3 C in warming.

It is a report our faux Environment and Climate Change Minister, Catherine McKenna, is desperately trying to repudiate with her usual misrepresentations, as her spokeswoman claims

Canada is leading internationally with its initiative to wean the world off coal power, and financing projects in developing nations to mitigate or adapt to climate change.

“Over the past three and a half years, our government has delivered on an ambitious, affordable plan that is doing more to cut carbon pollution than any other federal government in Canada’s history,” Sabrina Kim said in a written statement.

But the Climate Action Network ranks Canada’s climate plan as having the same impact on global warming as the policies of the United States, where President Donald Trump has rejected the Paris agreement.

The usual suspects, of course, will gloss over this by saying that at least the Liberals have a plan, something essentially absent from the Conservatives' platform. True enough, but of what value is a plan that does nothing to achieve the goals set out and agreed to in the Paris Agreement?

While it might provide a talking point in the upcoming election, such a plan is otherwise valueless.

Meanwhile, with no relief in sight, the climate-change race to the bottom continues apace.

The Lungs Of The Planet Are Failing

Called "the lungs of the planet," the Amazon rainforest is now ablaze; this year alone has thus far seen about 73,000 fires. When you consider that the rainforest provides about 20% of the world's oxygen, the situation, compounded by all the other climate-change havoc taking place, is dire indeed.

Start at the 12:00 mark to see this newest horror:

A Journal's Sad Decline

Readers of this blog will probably know that I am a big supporter of newspapers. In my view, they are the best bulwark against the ignorance that seems so prominent in Western society today. As a subscriber to The Toronto Star and a financial contributor to The Guardian, it is fair to say that newspapers have been a daily part of my life for a long time.

Having been born and raised in Hamilton, the newspaper of record when I was growing up was The Hamilton Spectator which, for the longest time, was an afternoon journal my family eagerly consumed after school and after work. It had a proud and long history in the Steel City, bringing to our doors both local and national news of note. Few homes went without it.

Now part of the Torstar chain, it is a paper I only buy on Saturdays. as I am addicted to the large weekly and the large New Your Times crossword puzzles contained therein. It is thanks to these once-a-week purchases that I have noticed the journal's sad decline. Not only does it rely increasingly on content from the Toronto Star, but also, it seems, on incendiary letters that, in my view, no responsible paper would publish, reliant as they tend to be on ad hominems and unsubstantiated assertions.

I offer the following as sad example of what may be a misguided attempt to increase circulation:

Obama, not Trump, was the great evil

As America's first black president, it was hoped Barack Obama would end the racial divide and bring unity to the country. Instead, the United States is more polarized than ever. He was a narcissist who wanted to change America. Everything about him was phoney. He was a demagogue whose speeches were high on rhetoric and empty promises. His actions divided the country and fanned the flames of racism and anti-Semitism. Don't look at what Obama said or how he said it. His actions belie his words. Democrats calling Trump Hitler and his supporters Nazis demonize half of Americans for the simple reason they don't support their insane leftist policies. Having a different political opinion shouldn't make you a target for verbal abuse or physical assault.

Is that what Obama meant when he said he wanted to "fundamentally transform the United States of America"? I guess he did and the result is not pretty.

Harold Pomerantz, Dundas

Blame the left, not Trump

Henry Giroux writes that, "Under the presidency of Donald Trump, the nightmare drumbeat of a fascist and racist tinged politics is getting louder and more consistent." Yes, except the drumbeat he cites is coming from the left, as their efforts to unseat the president become increasingly unhinged.

How can a man in the glare of publicity for decades suddenly be a white supremacist? How can there be a Nazi in the White House who's celebrated in Israel and has a half-Jewish family? How can Trump be uniquely evil if it's necessary to distort his actions and policies in order to show it? How can the Russia collusion stuff all be true, and then forgotten?

Get a grip, everyone. If Trump had run as a Democrat and still won the presidency, we'd be getting on with our lives.

Stuart Laughton, Burlington

Hero Trump protecting North America

The Spectator's recent columnist from the American Civil Liberties Union is spewing fake news. Chris Rickerd falsely stated that President Trump is anti immigration. Trump is not anti-immigration because America continues to accept over one million legal immigrants every year. Trump is against open borders. Trump isn't for illegal immigration, he is anti-illegals.

........

North America is the world's lifeboat and it must not be swamped. When we think about immigration we should ask ourselves, "Were the sailors who manned the Titanic's lifeboats racists because they didn't risk losing their survivors by going back for more survivors?" President Trump is only protecting Americans from illegal activities in order to preserve the Union.

George Rooney, Hamilton

It is beyond sad when a once-respected newspaper chooses to pander to shrill, inflammatory, populist but essentially empty rhetoric. Yellow journalism has no place in any responsible journal.

A Thousand Words ....

H/tTheoMoudakis

Because the political reactions from the right and the left are so tiresomely predictable, I thought I would offer a few examples from one of the so-called progressive groups that I monitor, thereby sparing those so inclined to label me for my refusal to bow before Trudeau and his sham liberalism. Out of respect for the privacy of those who post their comments within a closed forum, I leave out both source and identities. From a CBC story on Jane Philpott's reaction to the Ethic's Commissioner's report on the SNC-Lavalin scandal that I posted to the group come the following:

Another Schmeer campaign. I find it interesting that this reporting surfaces as Schmeer drops like a rock in Ontario.

Poor irrelevant Philpott.... lololol

a Pity she is still with the smear campaigners! !!

JP knows very well that JWR twisted her truth. JWR spoke to Campbell & that was the only former AG that JWR admitted to speaking to about the SNC case. Campbell did not see the info on the case, she went only by what JWR told her. Mulroney had something different than Campbell to say. The PM wanted JWR to bring an expert in to work on the case with JWR & to give advice & JWR refused to do that, so without another insight on the case, The PM did not feel that JWR's decision was the right way to go. JT did not interfere in any way, he just wanted JWR to fully do her job & use every tool that was available to her. Then there is the important information about the SNC case that JWR purposely with held from the PMO. Why is that not mentioned & the case files on JWR desk that had been sitting on her desks for months. The poor man who was in prison & finally found innocent & had to stay in prison for almost a year waiting for JWR to have him released. David the AG now had the man released with in 2 weeks after David took the AG position. There is much more & JP knows it all as well as JWR. Nope, if JWR had of been a man in the AG position, he would of been fired a lot sooner. JWR blew it her self, she let the power go to her head just like she is doing now. That alone will take her down again.

What about investigating Mr Andy Smear`s visit to Lavalin`s HQ ! What was the name of Harper`s man on the Lavalin Board of Directors!

Reacting to a story on the actual report by the Commissioner, some of the following illustrate the obdurate, uncritical support Trudeau commands from extreme partisans:

Enjoy PM Scheer.
Hillary's emails don't matter now anymore, do they?
I have sent this happen too many times with one single commissioner (who could be easily influenced by outside forces) bring down a government.

As much as it does suck, it is still better than the über-corrupt alternative, the Conservatives. Heck, in an interview on Canadaland (either Oppo or Commons) even Jodie Wilson Raybould was on the record saying she hopes Trudeau wins

In response, I wrote,

Rather than saying the Liberals are the best we've got, it is time for all Canadians to demand better government. Defending Trudeau as the least odious choice does nothing for the cause of good government.

This was followed by,

...voting for what is worse advances the cause of bad government.

... but you don't have to vote for the tories, we don't live in a two party system.

And it goes on and on, including the usual dismissal of Trudeau criticism as coming from 'the haters.'

All of this is as utterly predictable as it is dispiriting. Funny, isn't it, how partisanship on either poles of the political spectrum seems to require the suspension of critical thinking skills that we need now more than ever, all of which leaves me with little hope that we will ever see any improvement in a political landscape currently populated by hacks, Pavlovian loyalties, and a paucity of any real cogitation.

Now where have I seen this before?

UPDATED: Patently Ridiculous

That is my assessment of our faux Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna, in her latest political statement in answer to the question of whether or not Canada should ban the export of our plastic waste:

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says she has asked her department to look at what else Canada can do to reduce the amount of Canadian garbage that is ending up overseas.

As recently as Aug. 1, McKenna’s officials dismissed the idea of banning plastic waste exports entirely, fearing such a move could be economically harmful to countries with recycling industries that rely on the material. [Italics mine.]

Canada pointed to Australia, New Zealand and Japan as countries with similar policies.

But last week, Australia’s federal and state governments came together to start planning for an eventual ban of plastic waste exports.

While some might be fooled by McKenna's expressions of concern for jobs in other countries, others are not:

Kathleen Ruff, founder of the online advocacy campaign RightonCanada.ca, wants Canada to agree to stop shipping plastic waste out of the country. She has been critical of the federal Liberals for refusing to agree to amend the Basel Convention to stop plastic waste exports. The convention is an international agreement to prevent the world’s wealthiest nations from dumping hazardous waste on the developing world.

Ruff said she was happy to hear McKenna say there was room to do more — and suspects the Oct. 21 federal election may have something to do with it.

Politics, indeed. I think I would have more respect for McKenna if she took the almost unheard of route of speaking honestly to the public and state that a ban of plastic exports would require the elimination of a wide array of single-use products that Canadians are addicted to, ranging from plastic water bottles to bubble wrap to takeout containers to coffee cups (lined with plastic). Such a move would take real courage and vision, but the initial public backlash might be politically costly.

Instead, we have a visionless shill masquerading as the Environment and Climate Change Minister taking faux pride in the fact that we will ban plastic straws in another year or two.

In closing, it is useful to remind ourselves that we are all complicit in this minister's posturing:

Canadians are among the biggest producers of waste in the world, churning out as much as two kilograms per person every day.

Not a pretty picture


UPDATE: Now here is something we should all find sobering about plastic pollution:

Abundant levels of microplastic pollution have been found in snow from the Arctic to the Alps, according to a study that has prompted scientists to warn of significant contamination of the atmosphere and demand urgent research into the potential health impacts on people.

Snow captures particles from the air as it falls and samples from ice floes on the ocean between Greenland and Svalbard contained an average of 1,760 microplastic particles per litre, the research found. Even more – 24,600 per litre on average – were found at European locations. The work shows transport by winds is a key factor in microplastics contamination across the globe.

The scientists called for research on the effect of airborne microplastics on human health, pointing to an earlier study that found the particles in cancerous human lung tissue.

Eating Ourselves To Death

If you want to read a comprehensive report about another dire crisis humanity is facing, be sure to check out this post from the Mound.

There is something of a solution, but it is one most will just ignore. Here is the Coles Notes version:

Will Hysteria Or Rationality Prevail This Fall?

As we wind ou way through the dog days of summer, it is a truism that no one will pay attention to politics and the upcoming election until after Labour Day. That may well be, but the Green Party is seeking to allay fears that its climate action plan would result in massive job loss for those working in fossil-fuel industries.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has unveiled a multi-pronged plan to help workers in the gas and oil sector transition to a renewable energy economy, working to allay fears that her climate action plan would bleed jobs as she ramps up pre-election campaign efforts.

The Green worker transition plan, which includes skills retraining programs and massive retrofit and cleanup projects designed to create employment, fleshes out details from the Green Party's climate action plan called Mission: Possible, that was released in May.

A canny move in anticipation of the fear-mongering about the Greens that will inevitably increase as their momentum in the polls grows, May wants to spread the message that there will be plenty of work for those who will be displaced as we decarbonize. Her platform includes

- Investing in retraining and apprenticeship programs to refocus the skills of industrial trade workers for jobs in the renewable energy sector.
- Start[ing] a massive cleanup of "orphaned" oil wells; some of which can be transformed to produce geothermal energy.
- Creat[ing] a national program to retrofit all buildings to optimum energy efficiency.

May said the party's plan for retrofitting buildings would create four million jobs for tradespeople such as carpenters, electricians and plumbers, and said there is an "immense economic opportunity" in moving to green jobs.

"People may think when we talk about climate emergency that we're hoping to have people be afraid. People are already afraid. We want to give them hope and the tools to know that their future is secure."

While rabidly partisan 'progressives' will no doubt continue advocating a surrender to 'group-think', insisting that a vote for anyone but Trudeau is a vote for Scheer, it is to be hoped that independent, critical thinkers will base their voting decisions on more measured, less hysterical grounds.

Time will tell.

Only The Beginning

While the average cossetted North American may feel smug about the following, since the water shortages discussed seem far, far away, they are the stuff that social unrest, rioting, regime change and mass migrations are made of:

Countries that are home to one-fourth of Earth’s population face an increasingly urgent risk: The prospect of running out of water.

From India to Iran to Botswana, 17 countries around the world are currently under extremely high water stress, meaning they are using almost all the water they have, according to new World Resources Institute data published Tuesday.

Greatly exacerbated by climate change, floods and droughts are becoming more volatile:

Water-stressed places are sometimes cursed by two extremes. São Paulo was ravaged by floods a year after its taps nearly ran dry. Chennai suffered fatal floods four years ago, and now its reservoirs are almost empty.

Unfortunately, the short-term solution many countries have adopted, tapping deep into their aquifers, only promises a deferment of the crisis:

Mexico’s capital, Mexico City, is drawing groundwater so fast that the city is literally sinking. Dhaka, Bangladesh, relies so heavily on its groundwater for both its residents and its water-guzzling garment factories that it now draws water from aquifers hundreds of feet deep. Chennai’s thirsty residents, accustomed to relying on groundwater for years, are now finding there’s none left. Across India and Pakistan, farmers are draining aquifers to grow water-intensive crops like cotton and rice.

Are there any solutions? Not really.

...city officials can plug leaks in the water distribution system. Wastewater can be recycled. Rain can be harvested and saved for lean times: lakes and wetlands can be cleaned up and old wells can be restored. And, farmers can switch from water-intensive crops, like rice, and instead grow less-thirsty crops like millet.

Given the world's ever-increasing population, the quickening pace of climate change and humans' reluctance to alter their profligate ways, it is a safe bet that things will get worse. Clearly, this is only the beginning of the horrors that await the planet.

The Global Population Gets Greedier By The Day

That is the opening line in the following report that deals with Earth Overshoot Day, the day our species uses up the Earth's finite resources that should take a year to use. As my friend Mound often says, the climate-change disaster rapidly bearing down on us is but one part of a trifecta, the others being overpopulation and overuse of said resources. Our rapaciousness will be the death of us all, including many innocent non-human species.

Start the following at the 12:20 mark:

Be Very Afraid

I remember in 1975 seeing the film Jaws. Like most people, it terrified me, so much so that it was many year before I got up the courage to go into the ocean.

Perhaps it is time for a re-release of the film, given that warming waters due to climate change are increasing the chance that those venturing into the waters off the eastern seaboard could fall victim to the fierce marine predators.

The message? Be afraid. Be very afraid.



Sadly, all of this is yet another sign of the unfolding ecological collapse that the world's leaders will continue to ignore.

But Is Anyone Listening?

The Star has been running a series on climate change that I have read with some interest, offering as it does a good and extensive primer on the peril we face. Ultimately however, it fails, especially in the last part which talks about what we can do to combat it.

There really is only one solution, which letter writer Norm Beach of Toronto articulates. However, one has to ask a fundamental question: Is anyone in a position of power listening?

The Star’s series on our climate emergency notes that, despite Canada’s small population, we are among the top 10 biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the world. It’s important to add another inconvenient truth: Our emissions on a per-person basis are more than 20 tonnes annually, the highest of these ten largest-emitting countries, three times the G20 average and 20 times that of Bangladesh.

The good news: Our carbon footprint is getting smaller. The bad news: We’re not doing enough to avert global disaster.

If we keep on electing politicians dedicated to preserving market share for fossil fuels, our flag will get as much international respect as an oil-soaked rag and our children will inherit a devastated planet. Years ago, the Pogo cartoon put it best: “We have met the enemy … and he is us.” Canada, it’s time to get our heads out of the sand, stop squandering our hard-earned reputation, mobilize for the greater good and reclaim our right to be proud of our country.

Time For a Pre-Election Climate-Change Debate

Millenials, and those who follow them, are rightfully growing increasingly concerned about climate change. Thanks to the gift of mortality, it is unlikely that my cohort will be around to deal with most of the civil unrest, food shortages, skyrocketing prices, coastal flooding and the hordes of people fleeing their low-lying nations seeking sanctuary on our shores, but they will be.

Dozens of people rallied at CBC stations in Whitehorse and Yellowknife, among other Canadian communities, to demand the public broadcaster host a federal leaders' debate on climate change and a proposed Green New Deal.

"There's lots of questions to ask our federal leaders, and I think that this debate is the perfect opportunity to ask those hard questions and get those hard answers," said Braden Lamoureux, the organizer of the Whitehorse rally.

"Everybody deserves to know which of our leaders has a strategic plan to tackle this climate crisis."

Their concern is proving to be contagious.

A new poll finds that a majority of Canadians

want the government to take action to address climate change, even if the economy suffers....

...61 per cent of respondents strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement that it’s more important for the government to solve the issue of climate change even if that means that the economy suffers. That number was even higher in Quebec (76.8 per cent), Atlantic Canada (67.3) and B.C. (62), and among women (66.1), 18-35 year olds (64.4) and those aged 65 or older (64).

Other numbers from the poll are equally telling:

Over 85 per cent of respondents agreed that private companies should have to pay to pollute, including 69.1 per cent who strongly agreed. Support was highest in Quebec (89.1 per cent) and lowest in Alberta, though at 75.2 per cent agreeing, opposition to the concept is still rather marginal.

Also, just under 68 per cent of respondents agreed that theres’s a collective moral duty to future generations to not destroy the environment further, even if it means paying more taxes in the short term. As with the other responses, support was highest in Quebec (70.2 per cent), above the national average in B.C. (71.5) and Ontario (69.9), and lowest in Alberta (53).

Will any of this change the disastrous trajectory we are on? I doubt it, unless the major party leaders do agree to a separae debate on climate change during the campaign. This, of course, is highly unlikely, in that the Greens' Elizabeth May would without a doubt mop the floor with people like Trudeau and Scheer.

Nonetheless, it is a worthy pursuit, and for the the sake of their futures, I hope the young succeed in their efforts.

2019: What A Year So Far

With the Arctic now on fire, and the pace of climate change accelerating rapidly, even the dimmest or most ideologically bent amongst us must realize the peril we are in, and yet, remarkably, nothing seems to move us to do anything beyond giving lip service to the crisis. What a species we are, eh?

Wildfires are raging across the Arctic as warm, dry conditions persist across the region. Satellite images have revealed wildfires burning in Alaska, Greenland and throughout Siberia.

Whereas an Arctic forest fire typically lasts just a few hours or days, peat fires, which burn deep into the ground, can last weeks.

Peat also stores large amounts of carbon. As the Arctic's fires continue to burn, record amounts of CO2 are being released into the atmosphere.

Is Paris Burning?

The title question of a famous 1966 movie about the liberation of Paris from the Nazis is also an apt one to ask about the contemporary Parisian city, given the heat dome that has settled over a wide swath of Europe. As the following report (start at the 12:20 mark) makes clear, many are suffering, except for an American woman, who exults in the opportunity that climate change is offering. A good exemplar of the heedlessness of Americans, isn't she? Or perhaps a testament to their 'can-do' attitude, making lemonade out of the lemons Mother Nature is bringing our way?

While you're at it, be sure to watch the piece on Alaska, which immediately follows the Paris report.



If you crave a more global perspective on the climate crisis, be sure to read this sobering piece by climate science lecturer Tom Matthews.

Post-Partisanship (A.K.A., This Will Inflame Many)

In a move sure to enrage those 'progressives' who see a vote for anyone other than the Liberals as an attempt to subvert the natural order, Green Party head Elizabeth May says that she would consider supporting the Conservative Party or anyone else should the upcoming federal election result in a minority government:

“People change their minds when they see the dynamic of a way a Parliament is assembled and maybe think, ‘Killing carbon taxes isn’t such a good idea if the only way I get to be prime minister is by keeping them,’ ” May said.

“I think it’s really important to communicate with Canadians how our democracy works and that a minority Parliament is the very best thing, if, and this is a big if, you have parties and MPs in Parliament who are committed to working together,” she added.

“By ‘working together’,” CP adds, “she specifically means to slow climate change with policies that drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, don’t build any more oil pipelines, and replace fossil fuels with renewable energy as fast as possible.”

May's declaration comes at a time when there are many within the environmental movement, including Greens themselves, who are upset about her plan to continue with the tar sands rather than rely on imported oil:

Earlier this month, [Alex] Tyrell [leader of the Green Party of Quebec] launched a website, GreensRising.ca, urging May to change the platform to support a “rapid shut down” of the tar sands/oil sands in the first mandate of a Green government, “while investing heavily to support the estimated 140,000 people who work in the industry,” the Star states.

While I find May's idea about continuing with the tar sands quite disconcerting, she defends it by saying it

“would also halt all new development of fossil fuels in Canada—including multi-billion-dollar natural gas export projects—and stop all oil and gas imports from other countries. ... In their place, May proposes that Canada use energy that’s already produced here for domestic needs while the country shifts to 100% renewable energy. By 2050, the Greens would ensure all bitumen produced in Canada would be used only for the petrochemical industry, but May said the country will need to stop burning fossil fuels ‘well before’ that.”

No political party is perfect, and while I don't support May's idea about the tar sands, I do applaud her willingness to play well with others. In a political landscaped riven by hyper-partisanship, it is good to see someone with a vision that goes beyond simply acquiring power for its own sake. The common good, so long sacrificed on the altar of venal, craven ambition, may once again give people a modicum of hope for the future.

America The Beautiful, Eh?

Georgia State Representative Erica Thomas was subjected to a vicious racist verbal assault while shopping. Painful to watch, it once againt attests to how primitive our species really can be. Notably, the racist who attacked her quoted Trump:

We have made contact with @Publix @PublixHelps on Veterans Memorial HWY to get the tape and information #IStandWithErica pic.twitter.com/BD55GD0Uhh

— Gerald A. Griggs (@AttorneyGriggs) July 20, 2019

The Yesterday Man

Those with undying affection for, and advocacy of, fossil fuels are indulging in a venal nostalgia for the way things were. They cling to past truths about price differentials that allegedly make green energy too costly. They continue to claim that green energy, if produced during the day via solar panels, cannot meet night-time demand, a problem rapidly being addressed by quickly-evolving storage systems, the very same systems utilized when there is no wind powering wind turbines.

Their arguments, designed to protect assets doomed to become stranded are, to put it succinctly, running out of steam.

Indeed, Toronto Star letter-writer Sheri Kimura, of Toronto, is of the view that the federal government's purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline truly makes Justin Trudeau a yesterday man:

Since the Trudeau government purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline (meaning that we, as taxpayers, funded the purchase), it seems like good business to ensure that the Canadian public is educated about how much the project costs, what the expected profit might be and which markets we are serving. China plans to convert all it’s vehicles to clean energy in this generation, and Volkswagen — the single-largest car manufacturer in the world — is planning on making it’s entire fleet electric by 2025. Seems like a strange move to push a commodity that the largest available markets are phasing out. When Canada has so much money and potential for clean energy, why is anyone in our government, from any party, still pushing an antiquated commodity?

Even if we doubt the economic windfalls of clean energy, we cannot deny the weakening of the carbon-based industry and the decline in demand for oil. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made a terrible business decision on behalf of Canada. Any politician who pursues increased oil development is not making an economically-sound decision — they are simply sentimental about Canada’s oil-rich past and aging identity. We need political leaders with the clarity of mind to embrace (and make profitable) the inevitable change in Canada’s natural resources sector. Only then will our country truly progress, and our country’s identity will finally be free to evolve as well.

Closer Than You Think

In his latest series of racist tweets, Donald Trump urged four congresswomen of colour, all but one born in the U.S. to go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places [a.k.a. s**t-hole countries] from which they came. In the same tweet, he described the United States as the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth.

Many, for whom cogitation is not such a chore, beg to differ with that assessment:

Re Trump digs in against Democratic congresswomen, July 16
Toronto Star17 Jul 2019

U.S. President Donald Trump is quoted as saying that if lawmakers “hate our country,” they can go back to their “broken and crimeinfested” countries. Doesn’t he realize they are already living in one?

Mike Forster, Toronto

Is Donald Trump finally right about something?

The four congresswomen of colour he attacks as coming from “broken and crime-infested” countries unfortunately do come from such a country: the United States of America.

Can Canadians learn lessons from that degraded nation’s decline about setting limits on our own populist demagogues?

Douglas Buck, Toronto

I choked back tears as I read this compelling story about Donald Trump’s overt sexism and racism. How is it possible that the U.S. president could be saying to the world that “four Democratic congresswomen of colour … need to get out of the U.S. “right now”?

Trump has no qualms about exploiting racial divisions once again, and continues to alienate people of colour. If this latest folly is not enough to rid the U.S. of such poisonous words and ways, I don’t know what is. I beg U.S. senators and representatives to end this madness and return civility and intelligence to the White House.

Susan Kohlhepp, Toronto

The Epitome Of Moral Cowardice

They don't get much more craven than Mitch McConnell:

Mitch McConnell can’t say whether it's racist to tell an immigrant to go back to their country.

He is married to Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, an immigrant.

Astonishing. pic.twitter.com/TXv41cmb9z

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) July 17, 2019

Meanwhile, Theo Moudakis graphically represents the pathetic state of the Republican Party: