Almost a week ago I looked at why the grubby Donald Trump was trying to sound like a gangster.
And concluded it was because he was desperately afraid of going to the Big House.
Well now the cowardly bully is mouthing off again.
This time he's threatening Canada.
I didn't get a chance to see Andrew Scheer's reaction to the court decision on the Trans Mountain pipeline until late yesterday evening.
But when I did I was shocked, for he looked like a real mess, like a man becoming unravelled, or a young Bela Lugosi.
And when a reporter asked how he felt about this tweet.
I thought he was going to break down and scream.
But then who can blame him?
I haven't written much about pipelines because quite frankly I got pipelined out during the Harper years.
And also because I have always considered the fuss over the Trans Mountain pipeline to be just a distraction from the real war on climate change.
But now that a court has halted that project.
I just want to say that I couldn't be more delighted for the following reasons.
I have no idea why Andrew Scheer hates Canada so much. Or why can't put the interests of his country before those of his party.
Or why he tries so hard to debase and destroy his opponents.
That's something only a psychiatrist, or since he's a religious fanatic, only a minister can answer.
But that he does hate this country there can be no doubt.
For this is just the latest example.
When Maxime Bernier announced he was quitting the Con party, Andrew Scheer tried to downplay the defection.
And along with many others heaped scorn on Bernier's "Party of One."
But not any longer.
Now Scheer and his Rebel campaign manager Hamish Marshall appear to be panicking.
It was his most infamous remark, the one that should have instantly disqualified Donald Trump from running for President.
The one where he claimed that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any supporters.
But somehow Trump was elected instead of arrested, or confined to a mental institution.
And now Thomas Friedman has this disturbing question.
When Maxime Bernier decided to break away from Andrew Scheer and his "intellectually and morally corrupt" Cons.
And in the process made Scheer look like a cowardly leader. Or no leader at all.
The big question was how much damage could Bernier do to his former party?
Now a first poll is in, and Scheer must be quivering in his boots.
Donald Trump has been busy recently, lowering, then raising, then lowering the American flag over the White House.
President Trump, under enormous public and private pressure, finally issued a proclamation of praise for Mr. McCain on Monday afternoon, two days after the senator’s death, and ordered the flag to be flown at half-staff seemingly in the only place it wasn’t already, the presidential complex.
Which has only made him look even more cowardly and more classless, if that's possible.
But now it seems the desperate Trump wants OUR country to raise a flag, a white one.
Andrew Scheer had hoped that the Con convention in Halifax would be a shiny affair, a glitzy political coming out ball.
Where he would introduce himself to the millions of Canadians who still don't know who he is, and seduce them with his new/nouveau "positive message."
And they would scream "Andy, Andy, we NEED you to be Prime Minister!!!
But then Maxime Bernier said he wasn't coming, and it all went horribly wrong.
It says something not very flattering about Andrew Scheer, that they still have to write his name in big letters behind him, for the benefit of all those Canadians who still don't know him from a hole in a wall.
But on the other hand that ignorance does allow Scheer to reimagine himself, as he did yesterday during his very long speech to the Con convention.
Where he tried to portray himself as a nice, humble, down to earth Ottawa boy, quietly competent and ready to govern.
Which needless to say didn't quite work.
As I said in a recent post, this is the kind of place I'd like to see Donald Trump end up in one day.
Just slightly smaller, and without those hot pinups of Putin.
So I was amazed to hear that Trump has started to talk like a gangster, as if he knew the jig was up, knew he was heading for the Big House.
And is now living in a fantasy world, where he's Boss Trump trying to stop members of his crime family from flipping and squealing.
Moments after Maxime Bernier called his party "morally corrupt" and went storming off to form his own, Andrew Scheer tried to carry on, as if nothing had happened,
But he just couldn't. A strange look in his eyes gave him away. He couldn't lie his way out of this one.
He knew that Mad Max had almost certainly ended his hopes of becoming Prime Minister, and God's Servant in Canada.
And as if that didn't hurt enough, he also knew the worst was still to come.
Over the last two years Time Magazine has had many good covers of Donald Trump.
Covers that reflect the different chapters of his depraved reign.
With some real.
Earlier today I wrote a post looking at how Mad Max Bernier was threatening to wreck the Con convention.
By encouraging them to keep on playing their new old racist games.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Andrew Scheer's little conclave.
Bernier isn't threatening the convention any longer.
Now he's threatening to wreck the entire Con party.
It's the kind of thing that can ruin your evening. You come home, you turn on the TV, and there's Michelle Rempel, the new take no prisoners/ don't f**k with me Rempel, auditioning for the part of Canada's Marine Le Pen.
It doesn't get much worse than that.
But Rempel's performance yesterday was actually quite entertaining, when she suddenly announced that the Cons had a new immigration plan.
Only to derail her own launch by going after Maxime Bernier.
But then who can blame her?
Mad Max is on a rampage.
It seemed like a no brainer to me. Justin Trudeau is heckled by the anti-immigration white supremacist bigot Diane Blain.
He tells her firmly but politely that racism has no place in Canada.
Only to be accused by Andrew Scheer of using "vile personal insults" to "shut down legitimate criticism of his government."
And, if that wasn't enough, of doing more more to divide Canadians than anybody ever has.
I thought that even our grubby Con media would be able to tell who was standing up for our values, and who was playing cheap politics.
But sadly I was wrong.
Donald Trump is holding a rally in coal country West Virginia, and I think I can imagine what he's going to say.
"Pray for me bubbas, I'm having a really bad day."
And who can blame him?
Ever since he became Con leader, after a leadership race that reeked of corruption, Andrew Scheer has been blowing a giant dog whistle the size of a house.
Seeking to whip up hatred against Muslims, refugees, non-white immigrants for crass political purposes.
And thanks to our grubby Con media, he has somehow managed to avoid being tagged as a bigot.
But not any longer.
Justin Trudeau has had to deal with all kinds of crazed hecklers as he travels across the country.
There's one being removed from a town hall in Quebec City last January, with a Canadian flag defaced by a swastika.
But the way he dealt with an aggressive heckler from the far-right group Storm Alliance, while surrounded by other members of that group, had to be one of his most magnificent moments.
If only for the message he sent out at a time when fascists are on the move all over the world:
"Racism has no place in Canada."
As Mad Max Bernier Bernier comes back from the dead, and threatens to eat the Con convention, I can only imagine how Andrew Scheer must be feeling.
Once he might have welcomed Bernier's assault on diversity, as a way to stir up their bestial base.
So he could keep whipping up racist feelings, make Justin Trudeau look like a weakling, and keep those hate dollars coming.
But not any longer. Not when it's now even MORE obvious that he really, really, really, wants Scheer's job.
And of course, this is a nightmare.
As you can imagine, Andrew Scheer is looking a little beleaguered. Like a man on the edge of a cliff, or a nervous breakdown.
But then who can blame him? His big shiny Con convention is now less than a week away, and it's all going horribly wrong.
Maxime Bernier is making him look like a wimp. He just won't shut up.
Scheer is too cowardly to fire him.
And now to make matters even worse, it looks a lot like the Con clown Michelle Rempel may have finally gone over the deep end.
As we all know Donald Trump is growing more unhinged with every passing day. And has been stepping up his deranged attacks on the media.
Like this one he tweeted or excreted early this morning.
In his never ending attempt to try to get the media to give him the coverage he believes he deserves.
He tried to hold off as long as he could. He didn't want to say anything bad about Maxime Bernier, and have his supporters come after him.
Or cause a big fuss at the Con convention which is now less than two weeks away.
But in the end Andrew Scheer was forced to do something, or say something, anything, about Bernier's deranged assault on diversity.
So he flogged him with a wet noodle
For how else can you describe this flaccid statement?
Where Bernier is NOT condemned for his ongoing racist assault on diversity, immigrants, and the values that have made this country great.
And Scheer thinks he can get away with this:
“Personally, I disagree with politicians on the left and the right when they use identity politics to divide Canadians. I will not engage in this type of politics.”
Which couldn't be more outrageous or more hypocritical.
When Scheer is a religious fanatic and alt-right sympathizer who has been using identity politics and naked racism to try to scare people into voting for him and his Cons...
And for that attack ad alone should have been asked to resign in the name of human decency.
As should Bernier, for as Dale Smith points out, both him and Scheer are basically blowing the same dog whistle.
The fact that Scheer didn’t actually condemn Bernier’s statement, and the fact that he immediately engaged in both-sidesism to condemn identity politics “on the left and the right” seems to fit with the fact that this particular kind of shitposting by members of his party is not only tolerated, but is the modus operandi of their current communications strategy.
The fact that Scheer is using the same language about identity politics that Bernier is using certainly makes it sound like he’s more than just winking to them about the kind of dog-whistling that they’re engaging in.
But then Scheer learned everything at the feet of Stephen Harper, and Bernier is only following in his old master's footsteps...
Regurgitating Harper's infamous old stock campaign.
While seeming to forget that in a country with so many immigrants, that grubby campaign triggered an explosion of bigotry.
Which contributed massively to the defeat of the Harper regime.
And oh yes, I almost forgot. You know that "migrant crisis" that Michelle Rempel has been screaming about for months...
Well it turns out it's NOT a crisis.
Despite the increase in the number of border crossers last month, the Liberal government appears to have brought the situation under control. The Conservatives are wrong: There is no crisis.
The Cons lied about that one too.
Oh boy, you know a few years ago Justin Trudeau delivered a speech at McGill University called Canadian Liberty and the Politics of Fear.
It's a remarkable speech, and you can read it or watch it here.
But here's a short clip.
And I think it's obvious what vision of Canada needs to prevail if this big but still relatively young country is going to survive.
The Cons have shown their true colours.
Their masks have fallen off.
Now it's up to us to defeat them, and make this country clean again...
Earlier today I wrote a post examining whether the next presidential election could be fought and won on climate change.
But I forgot to mention another really interesting question.
Could the red state of Florida be turned blue by a stinking red tide?
During his ill fated bid to be Con leader Maxime Bernier used this bizarre graphic to try to get people to vote for him.
It's inspired by the science-fiction movie The Matrix, where taking the red pill means embracing reality, and taking the blue one means settling for blissful ignorance.
But because the red pill is also a code word used by men who don't believe in gender equality, it should also have been a warning.
And now of course it's too late.
Ever since he came to power, Donald Trump has waged an all out war on the planet.
He has called climate change a "con job" and a "hoax," ripped up regulations, expanded the production of oil, gas, and coal, and walked away from the Paris climate accord.
He has mocked the very idea of global warming.
And has for the most part managed to get away with it.
But now Thomas Friedman wonders, with global warming now impossible to ignore, will his planet burning ways come back to haunt him?
I knew Andrew Scheer wasn't going to be too hard on Mad Max Bernier for his brutish assault on diversity.
Scheer has yet to criticize the Saudis for their bestial attempt to hurt and humiliate this country.
So he's not exactly a hero eh?
And he knows that if he came down too hard on Bernier, his rabid racist base would tear him apart.
But this is ridiculous.
In my last post I looked at how the Cons had been hit by a series of bozo eruptions, just a couple of weeks before they hold their big convention in Halifax.
And how a lot of people were wondering whether Andrew Scheer had lost control of his party. Or had corrupted it beyond recognition.
So these days it's little more than the Party of Hate, spewing toxic bigotry in every direction.
And now to make matters even more desperate for the floundering Scheer, there has been another bozo eruption.
And it's a big one.
Ever since he became Con leader after a
tainted leadership race, I have been warning that the creepy Andrew Scheer could corrupt this country beyond recognition.
And to a large extent he has done that, wounding our system of government with his Republican style attack ads.
Murdering decency, blowing his racist dogwhistle, and lying like a thief over and over again.
While our shabby Con media looked the other way.
But now at last that might be changing.
It's now been four days since the clown prince of Saudi Arabia launched a deranged assault against Canada.
Trying to damage our economy, our schools, and our hospitals.
But still the grubby Con Andrew Scheer is remaining silent and refusing to defend our country.
But while his motives are only too obvious, Michael Harris wonders whether there is an orange elephant in the room.
As I'm sure you know, I never believed that Doug Ford was anywhere near qualified to be the Premier of Ontario.
And I always knew it was only a matter of time before his inner ape emerged..
But who knew he'd be riding the crazy train so soon?
It has now been three days since the clown prince of Saudi Arabia launched his deranged assault against Canada.
He's bad mouthing our country, trying to hurt our economy, his foreign minister is demanding a grovelling apology.
But still the hapless Andrew Scheer has not come to the defence of his country.
And all we've got so far from his treasonous Cons is this.
It's been almost two days since the perfumed prince of the barbarous kingdom of Saudi Arabia, launched an insane assault on Canada for having had the nerve to stand up for human rights.
But strangely enough Con leader Andrew Scheer has yet to stand up for Canada, or say a word about the Saudi offensive.
Or maybe not so strangely, since he's not exactly a human rights champion himself.
But it does raise the disturbing question, whose side is he on?
I was relaxing in the little park next to the marine police station, on the last day of a long sweltering weekend, when Callum came running up with the shocking news.
Mohammed bin Salman aka MBS, the perfumed crown prince of the barbaric Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, had declared war on Canada for not showing him enough respect.
And not only was he now trying to bully us into submission.
Saudi Arabia lashed out at Canada on Monday for criticizing the recent arrests of Saudi rights activists, and threatened to break off trade with other Western countries if they too spoke out about political repression in the kingdom.
Some of his agitated supporters appeared to be threatening a 911-style attack on MY neighbourhood !!!!!!
For a long time Andrew Scheer has been able to hide in plain sight. Hide behind his creepy smile.
He rarely gives any interviews. He deleted his platform the day he became Con leader, and all we ever see him doing is attacking Justin Trudeau, day after day after day.
So it's hard to take the real measure of the man.
We know he is a religious fanatic, an alt-right sympathizer, and that he is now trying to whip up racist feelings over the border issue, for crass political purposes.
But every now and then he reveals his inner mediocrity.
And it's both terrifying, and hilarious...
It's starting to resemble a nightmare in a beer garden, with Doug Ford already looking like one of the worst Premiers Ontario has ever known.
He has ended the fight against climate change, even as the province is hit by record temperatures.
He has halved the size of Toronto's City Council without any consultation. He has slashed funding for the poor and the mentally ill.
He is cancelling badly needed school repairs, and threatening the lives of LGBT children as only a coward could.
But the beast would like you to forget all that and focus instead on this.
I couldn't understand it. It seemed to make no sense to me. Why in the sweltering summer of the hate crime, were Andrew Scheer and his Cons fanning the flames of racism?
Why were they playing politics with the border issue, at a time when police all over the country were busy busting hate mongers.
Why was this happening In a country called Canada?
And then I saw a new Abacus poll, and it all became horribly clear.
He's on his Great MAGA tour of America, holding one large rally after the other. He lives for those moments.
But even the screams of his fanatical followers can't mask the fact the Donald Trump is slowly cracking up.
His speeches and tweets are becoming even wilder, and even more deranged.
He knows that Robert Mueller is closing in on him
I knew it wouldn't take long for Doug Ford to start breaking his promises.
Just as long as it took for that Con clown to realize that thanks to scrapping the provinces cap and trade program, he had no money to pay for them.
Or understand that running a small label factory isn't the same as running Canada's biggest province.
But did he really have to break his first promise on the backs of the poor?
