Past His Best-Before Date

While I have long admired the film work of Clint Eastwood, his politics are a profound disappointment. Despite his advanced years (he is 86), I am unprepared to excuse him for this:

Clint Eastwood has stopped short of endorsing Donald Trump, but in an interview in Esquire magazine he praised the Republican presidential candidate for being “on to something.”

In the interview posted online Wednesday, the actor-director hailed Trump as a foe of political correctness and lamented what he called “the kiss-ass generation.”

“Everybody’s walking on eggshells,” said Eastwood, 86. “We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren’t called racist.”

No, Clint, I guess when you were growing up in that storied American past, people knew their places, eh?

Oh well, at least he doesn't appear to be talking to empty chairs these days.

UPDATE: Yet Another '100-Year Event'

This one was in the traditionally water-challenged area of Phoenix, Arizona.



For additional commentary on our worsening climate, check out The Mound's post.

UPDATE: I have not yet had an opportunity to watch this film, but the trailer suggests it will make compelling and informative viewing:



The complete film can be accessed here.

Assesing Trudeau: A Guest Post By Pamela MacNeil

Yesterday, in response to my post about the Trudeau government's diluting the terms of the rules governing the export of arms, frequent commentator Pamela MacNeil offered these insightful observations:

I think "the terrible embargo on truth, honesty and openness," Lorne, will still be there with Trudeau. He can march on gay pride parades and support gender equality, which are good things, but he threatens the democratic and constitutional foundation these rights rest on. He has shown this with his support of the BDS motion and with his military deal with Saudi Arabia, to name a few of his decisions. The response he gives to violating Canadians' rights in these decisions is complete indifference.

His ignoring of amending or, better still, repealing Bill C-51 is very worrisome. The security and privacy risks it poses have already been enacted on some Canadians by CSIS. He may remain silent about it until he can find a way to keep it intact.

His foreign policies follow almost completely Harper's Neoliberal and American Imperial agenda. The U.S. expanding NATO troops, including Canada, in Eastern Europe along the Russian border is very dangerous.

Trudeau goes along and accepts the propaganda narrative that the U.S. is spewing about Russia. More then ever this is when we need a strong independent PM who at the very least questions U.S. foreign policy or, better still, says no to its request to go along with the deception.

The policies he creates in energy, climate change, trade and defence are not in Canadians' interest, but are in fact supporting special interests, especially the American Government's interests.

He is no different than Harper, including having his MPs toeing the party line. Where Harper was a miserable, petty personality, Trudeau is very likable. That is primarily where they differ. In developing policy, however, they are Neoliberal Imperial twins. This does not make him less an authoritarian then Harper.

Because of his strong positive personality though, it's going to take Canadians a long time to come to that conclusion.

When Canadians gave Trudeau his majority, we were ready to once again become a progressive, sophisticated country that respected the rights of all Canadian citizens including the rights of citizens of the world. Instead, Trudeau has embarked on a journey of making Canada a sycophant of the U.S. and is quite prepared to destroy our sovereignty in becoming that sycophant.

Where Harper was aware of what he was doing, Trudeau may be oblivious to the political and cultural consequences of his policy decisions. This doesn't make him any less dangerous.

Canadians are going to have a serious fight on our hands when we realize we're going to have to once again reclaim our democracy.

Are The Changes Only Cosmetic?

Despite unpromising predictions, Justin Trudeau led his party to overwhelming victory close to a year ago. And like political prisoners held captive by a foul and reactionary regime, Canadians began immediately basking in the freedom they were so long denied. According to a Toronto Star article, that basking continues to this day.

“People are welcoming this more active, bolder form of federal government,” said Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research Associates.

Graves said that the Liberals have been consistently polling above 40 per cent in popular support. His firm’s most recent survey had the Liberals at 46 per cent, the Conservatives at 26 per cent and the NDP at 15 per cent.

While I continue to feel much better than the years I chafed under the Harper cabal, it would be imprudent for any of us to simply turn our eyes away and merely trust Justin and his team to do the right thing. As many others have pointed out, there are some very troubling indicators that in many ways we are witnessing only a change in styles, not substance, from the previous regime. A cosmetic makevoer, if you will.

Thanks to Kev, who tweeted a link to this story, it would seem we have ample reason to worry, given the adamant refusal of Trudeau to reconsider the Saudi arms deal. Apparently his answer is to simply change the rules.

The Canadian government has quietly watered down its own mandate for screening the export of military goods, rewriting parts of the only substantive public statement available on Ottawa’s responsibilities for policing foreign sales.

The Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada, published by the department of Global Affairs, offers the best insight into Ottawa’s export-control policy when it comes to screening deals to sell defence products to foreign customers.

Both the 2014 and 2015 versions of the Report on Exports of Military Goods were released recently by the Trudeau government. Like previous reports, they include several pages of prefatory statements that articulate the rationale and guiding principles for screening weapons sales.

As the saying goes, the devil is in the details, and something akin to the diabolical is to be noted here:

It has removed a phrase about how export controls are intended to “regulate and impose certain restrictions on exports” in response to clear policy objectives.

Instead, it substitutes more anodyne language saying the goal of Canada’s export controls on military goods is, in fact, to “balance the economic and commercial interests of Canadian business” with this country’s “national interest.”

This edit removes the only reference in the entire document to restricting and regulating the export of military goods.

In 1987, Ronald Reagan made famous an old Russian adage while negotiating an arms control treat with Mikhail Gorbechev: "Trust, but verify." Clearly, with this latest development, that advice is as applicable today as it was then.

The Power And The Glory

The power is nature's, and the glory is the human capacity for noble, courageous action, as you will see. Two bad that in the collective human psyche, we can't have more of the latter and less of a thirst for the former.

News From Dystopia

We interrupt this program to bring you important news. But please remember, as Johnny Carson used to say, "I merely report these things, folks. I don't make them up.

The Colorado Springs fire marshal gave a measured response after being attacked by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump for not allowing his rally to get unsafely overcrowded.

Trump lashed out at Colorado Springs Fire Marshal Brett Lacey at his Friday rally, blaming him for the fact that not everyone who held tickets to the event could get inside — but Lacey said that was because rally organizers gave out too many tickets. The hall at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where the rally was held, holds a maximum capacity of 1,500 — and Lacey allowed 100 more inside after evaluating the crowd.

“The reason they won’t let them in is because they don’t know what the hell they’re doing,” Trump said Friday. “Now because of your fire marshal, who I am not a fan of, he’s probably a Democrat, probably a guy than doesn’t get it, I’m going to go into the other room and say hello to people that didn’t get your location.”

This came after Colorado Springs firefighters rescued Trump and about ten others from a stalled elevator just before his speech by prying open the top and lowering a ladder, according to KKTV.

Lacey responded by simply saying it is his job to make sure everyone is safe at such events.

“There’s an old adage that when a fire marshal walks into a room, milk curdles,” he told the station. “So because we’re always looking out for public safety and trying to make certain venues go off successfully and safely sometimes there are people that aren’t very happy with some of the rules and regulations that we’re required to enforce. But it doesn’t bother me at all.”

Lacey recently received recognition from the city for helping the wounded after the 2015 mass shooting at Planned Parenthood.

All Grown Up

But more of a menace than ever.