Well as you know Stephen Harper has been duelling with the voices in his head. Seeing enemies everywhere, and losing track of what century he's living in. Two days ago he was channelling Margaret Thatcher, fighting the Cold War all over again. Challenging Vladimir Putin to knock down the Berlin Wall, and surrender the ethnic vote. Or ELSE !#@!!!!. And today he tried to go after Obama only to get clobbered. Or impaled on his own petard.
Well I think it's safe to say that Stephen Harper's Great Tiny Tour of Mexico is shaping up to be the most pathetic foreign trip ever by a Canadian Prime Minister. For one thing the Three Amigos aren't the Three Amigos anymore, not when the two others hate him. And he has so little to offer or receive, that he has been forced to resort to desperate measures to occupy his time. Like hastily organizing his own mini summit with Big Oil.
Well as you know he's been putting pressure on the Obama administration to approve his Keystone XL pipeline. And so have his Republican buddies. Republican leaders in Congress are planning a legislative offensive to force the White House’s hand on the Keystone XL pipeline decision if the Obama administration does not declare its support for the project in the coming weeks. Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, said Republicans are considering attaching a Keystone decision to a new law to raise the debt ceiling, which may be needed by the end of February for the U.S. to avoid another financial crisis. But it's all going horribly wrong.
Well yank my doodle dandy. One more good reason why right-wingers should never be allowed anywhere near a democracy. In Canada they've closed down Parliament, in the United States they've closed down the government.
I see it's going to be an apocalyptic weekend. The unofficial end of the northern summer that is never long enough. The sound of fighter jets flying low over my tree house. And of course this ghastly nightmare.
Well we all know he's an oil pimp. We all know he says he's an economist. We all know he's been claiming that the Keystone XL pipeline would create tens of thousands of jobs in the United States. Prime Minister Stephen Harper told an American audience today that the Keystone XL pipeline "absolutely needs to go ahead." Harper said the project will create 40,000 jobs south of the Canadian border and that can't be ignored. And trying to embarrass Obama into approving the Keystone XL pipeline. But unfortunately for Great Oily Leader you can't fool all the people all the time. And unlike him Obama CAN count.
Golly. For a moment today it looked like an old Christopher Lee movie. When somebody opens the window, daylight streams in, and all the Con vampires turn to stone. But alas, it was only Stephen Harper having a REALLY bad day. A day when you really had to wonder whether he's losing control of his party, and/or losing control of his faculties.
It's been the weirdest winter ever where I live. It was so warm for so long it took forever for the canal to freeze, until it was safe enough to skate on. Then it thawed so quickly, the net got stranded in the middle of nowhere, with the ice too thin to retrieve it. And since I blame global warming for this latest disaster, and so many others, I wasn't exactly thrilled by this news.
It was a stirring sight.Tens of thousands of protesters braving the freezing cold to try to stop the planet from burning. Demanding that Obama kill the Keystone XL pipeline. Canada’s carbon-intensive oilsands industry was the guest of dishonour in Washington on Sunday, where the largest in a series of nationwide climate rallies demanded President Barack Obama call a halt to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Although I HATED the way the New York Times framed this story.
What a fairy tale day it was. What an awesome spectacle of democracy. What a great day to be a progressive. A black President on Martin Luther King Day standing up for freedom, justice, and equality. A solemn President Barack Obama took the oath of office for the second time in as many days on Monday, this time before an estimated 800,000 jubilant citizens who cheered on his appeal for Americans to come together and fight for cherished U.S. principles of justice and equality.
Oh boy. I don't know how to say this, but I feel I almost owe Mitt Romney an apology. For while it's true that he's a shameless huckster who lied so much he almost fooled enough Americans into making him President. Which scared the bejeezus out of me eh?
Wow. What an amazing night. It's hours after it ended and I still can't believe it. How Obama knocked Mitt Romney off his White Horse, and sent him back to Bain Capital riding backwards on a burro. For as even David Frum admitted "This isn't a reaffirmation of the status quo. This is a Republican thumping."
It's hard not to see what's happening in the United States as anything less than a slow-motion horror show. A nation reeling from the catastrophe of Hurricane Sandy. A presidential election too close to call. National opinion polls suggest the race for the popular vote in Tuesday's election is so close that only a statistically insignificant point or two separates the two rivals. And an ever mutating Mitt Romney threatening a Zombie Apocalypse if he loses.
It's been a living nightmare. The dirtiest election I've ever seen. An election corrupted by Big Money, two billion dollars worth of attack ads, and more Big Lies than you can count. A frightening spectacle of a country so bitterly divided, it's eating itself alive.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Obama and Mitt Romney had a debate but only Romney showed up.
Mitt Romney pressed the reset button last night on his campaign. He presented himself as a compassionate centrist, deeply concerned about the fate of the unemployed and low-income households struggling to climb the economic ladder in a stagnant economy. Posing as a man who cares about the poor, when that callous millionaire has spent his whole life screwing them. Spewing one Big Lie after the other. While Obama just stood looking there looking like a wimp, and let him get away with murder.
The other night I accused Stephen Harper of timing his decision to sever ties with Iran in order to ratchet up tensions, just before Benjamin Netanyahu went ballistic.
Why is he doing this?
My guess is that he's saying what he's saying because he knows he can't attack, especially before the U.S. election, barring a yellow light from Obama, which he's not getting. Sheer frustration at what he sees as Obama's obtuseness is causing these undiplomatic outbursts.
By trying to create the sense that the crisis was reaching a critical point, that Israel could strike at any time, which could only put more pressure on Obama to surrender to Netanyahu's demands for a so-called red line.And give Mitt Romney fodder to claim that even Canada was doing more than Obama to contain the Iranian Threat.
“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Mr. Obama said.
It won't make any difference to gay couples in many states like North Carolina.
But in a country as homophobic as the United States it was a courageous gesture.
