Having some fun now! Trudeau at the PIFI hearing, and Harris on Fox News

First, Trudeau testified at the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference hearings today. 

Trudeau was supposed to be embarassed, bumbling, and exposed by this inquiry - but instead, it was Poilievre who found himself stumbling -- unfit to lead because he won't, or can't, get a high-enough security clearance for CSIS briefings. 

Reminded me a lot of this old skiing cartoo - stunned Poilievre doesn't know what hit him, while competent Trudeau continues on his merry way:

PIERRE POILIEVRE IS NOT A SERIOUS PERSON.
Watch and listen (clip from the PM's testimony at the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference – October 16, 2024 ~11:50am). pic.twitter.com/oRFtwpf7HK

— AMC 🇨🇦 (@AMCinHogtown) October 16, 2024

Trudeau calls it “bewildering” and “inexplicable” that Pierre Poilievre will not get the necessary top secret clearance to protect the integrity of the Conservative Party of Canada.

— Judy Trinh (@judyatrinh) October 16, 2024

Two former CSIS directors have just said that there isn’t a justification for briefing Poilievre’s chief of staff when Poilievre himself won’t get the clearance. #PnPCBC

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 16, 2024

Also an excellent summary tonight from Wesley Wark A National Security PM? One more word on the PM’s testimony before PIFI

...He was forthright in stating that he was astonished to learn, for the first time through CSIS evidence presented to the Inquiry, about a liberal Parliamentarian who had been targeted by FI. He said he should have been alerted but also claimed that the changes that have made to the dissemination of intelligence would guarantee that if these events had happened in the present he would have been informed.

But then the PM turned to how best to ensure that all political parties were aware of foreign interference. He expressed some reservations about a policy of briefing Parliamentarians using intelligence information. But he extolled the value of bringing all opposition party leaders into the secret tent so that they could be made aware of intelligence on foreign interference threats targeting Canadians and their parties. This requires opposition leaders to be security cleared to a high level so that they can receive classified briefings. Jagmeet Singh for the NDP and Elizabeth May for the Greens have taken this step. Yves-Francois Blanchet for the Bloc said he would, but appears not to have followed through. The PM said he regarded this approach as non-partisan in nature. Knowledge raises all boats.

But then the PM went on to unleash a fierce attack on the Conservative Party leader, Pierre Poilievre, for his refusal to obtain a security clearance. He called this decision by Poilievre “bewildering,” “lacking in common sense,” and “irresponsible.” He stated later in cross-examination that Poilievre lacked seriousness about national security and appeared unconcerned that his own leadership race may have been impacted by foreign interference. There was a to and fro with the counsel for the Conservative Party on this. It got juicy. I think Trudeau won that one on points.

This was both an electioneering moment and a legacy moment. The PM positioning himself as best placed to defend the country’s national security and deliver policies and actions in the national interest. ...

Today's News: Quick Takes on Trudeau, Poilievre, the House of Commons, Harris, Trump, the US Election, and Brexit

Just a few Quick Takes - some stuff  worth reading tonight:

Trudeau

My latest: This is not a diplomatic spat — it’s state terrorism, and Canada is right to call it out https://t.co/GZGbDh6kNU pic.twitter.com/jOYXwM6RyM

— Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@acoyne) October 15, 2024

WAKE UP
Seriously, the future depends on these two people. The alternatives are unthinkable. There are very dark days ahead if demented Trump & sociopathic Poilievre are running the show and driving our democracies into the dirt. #IStandWithTrudeau2025 #HarrisWalz2024 pic.twitter.com/YY5oe0tYGW

— IslandMan (@LaBeaujardine) October 13, 2024

I’m posting this slow-motion clip of Justin Trudeau running his fingers through his hair just to watch Maple MAGA heads explode. pic.twitter.com/smG1yRATss

— cαηα∂α нαтεs тя☭мρ (@Trump_Detester) September 26, 2024

Today's News: Extraordinary warning about threats from India

Well, I was going to put up a light-hearted post tonight about Thanksgiving - cartoons, nice stories, etc. 

But then this happened:

RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme told a news conference in Ottawa that the force decided to take the “extraordinary” step of warning the public after Indian government officials refused to co-operate in an investigation into the threats #cdnpoli #ParlCA https://t.co/P0CxbKjJL3

— iPolitics (@iPoliticsCA) October 15, 2024

The Toronto Star article gives us a blow-by-blow of how Canada tried to inform India about its findings: Inside Canada’s struggle to engage with the Modi government — and why it ended with the expulsion of six Indian diplomats RCMP alleges that Indian diplomats and consular officials in Canada are tied to murders, violence, intimidation and threats against Canadians.

...The two countries each expelled six diplomats as the Mounties disclosed their suspicions in a news conference after efforts by top Canadian officials, in Washington and Singapore, failed over the past week to resolve an impasse in their investigations.

RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme told reporters that the situation required immediate public disclosure in an effort to disrupt what is going on.

...So far, Duheme said, eight people have been charged in Canada with homicides — although he refused to specify the number of Canadian deaths or the time frame involved.

And 22 individuals stand charged with extortion, or acts of intimidation, coercion, threats and harassment that Canadian authorities now see as likely connected to agents acting at the Indian government’s direction. Police have given warnings to 13 Canadians since last September that they are potential targets of Indian agents. Some have received multiple threats, and they have been on the rise in recent weeks, police say.

More explosive is the allegation that Indian government officials posted in Canada are “directly” linked to the violence.

...things ramped up in earnest about six weeks ago.

The RCMP had by then determined a pattern in a series of investigations in a number of cities across Canada, the sources said: it appeared Indian diplomats and consular officials in Canada were conveying information about the movements and activities of certain Canadians back to Indian intelligence officials in India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, known as RAW.

According to the sources, speaking confidentially in order to discuss Canada’s findings, that information appeared to be then conveyed to a criminal gang in India, whose leader Lawrence Bishnoi is in Indian prison custody but uncharged, and in turn passed on to individuals in Canada who police allege are “agents of India” acting to intimidate, threaten and even kill Canadians.

The prime minister, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told reporters on Monday that the primary targets of the interference have been Sikh Canadians, but said the threats went beyond that community to include other South Asian Canadians. All three said they have shared the information with counterparts in the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance that includes the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand....

Today's News: Freaking Out about the Presidential Polls

 

https://www.270towin.com/mp

Three weeks to go and the Presidential polls are freaking everyone out:

If you are noticing that the only national polls Trump is leading in are the ones taken by a single far-right polling outfit known to be run by a Trumpist you are reading this image correctly pic.twitter.com/Y810f4z1rv

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) October 13, 2024

Cannot stress enough that Rs would not be dropping dozens of polls into the battlegrounds to move the polling averages if they thought they were winning.

Harris leads by 4 in PA in new NYT poll. More red wave polls there than any other state. https://t.co/YruOCllTBx

— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) October 12, 2024

With three weeks to go we should note that Rs have dropped more than 60 polls into the polling averages over the last few weeks to red wave 2024.

The only reason they would be doing that is that if they though they were losing. https://t.co/p0AwV6wH6v

— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) October 14, 2024

More desperate, losing candidate vibes from Trump: 6/https://t.co/tgZXEWHH4z

— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) October 12, 2024

Today's News: Oh for f**ks sake, why would Trudeau step down NOW?

Lots of news today about how a group of unnamed Liberal back-benchers are supposedly organizing to get Trudeau to resign as party leader. 

Yeah, sure -- whose bright idea was that?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will face mounting pressure from his caucus this week to step down from the leadership of the Liberal party.

A group of backbench MPs, primarily from Atlantic Canada and southwestern Ontario, are in discussions to formally release an ask for the prime minister to consider the future of the Liberal party in making a decision about whether to stay at the helm of it....

CTV News spoke to 24 Liberal MPs Friday, about half of whom said they were aware of a so-called letter circulating but had not put their name to it. Half a dozen of the MPs said they had heard "about 30 people are signing it" but had not seen the signatures themselves. Three MPs told us they could only speak for themselves but would support the prime minister re-considering his bid to lead the party into the next election and another three MPs said it was "news" to them the letter existed.

Each MP requested anonymity out of concern of reprisal for speaking out. Many told CTV News the Prime Minister's Office has taken a harder line on MPs leaking to the press as of late.

The media were just delighted as they rushed to "break" this story but really, come on folks -- there is no reason at all for Trudeau to "step down" right now, not just before the US election, 3 weeks away. But there is all the reason in the world for him to stay the course until he sees what will be happening to our largest trading partner.

Imaginary News

We have all heard now about Fake News - see also Truthiness, Alternative Facts, and Mis-information. Now, we're hearing "imaginary news" --

We’ve all become desensitized, but it’s amazing how at this point the Trump campaign rests entirely on denouncing things that aren’t happening — a imaginary bad economy, imaginary runaway crime and now an imaginary failure of Biden and Harris to respond to natural disaster

— Paul Krugman (@pkrugman.bsky.social) September 30, 2024 at 3:37 PM

Post by @ri.woche

View on Threads

And Trump just keeps on lying:

Yet again it turns out the 'Scranton firefighters for Trump' at his event were not firefighters but just random people holding signs pic.twitter.com/W3NgyZTEt9

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) October 11, 2024

Interviews with Harris and Walz

Harris and Waltz are doing media all over this week (except tne New York Times and Politico, and boy are they pissed!) 

Anyway, here are some good clips: 

From Howard Stern:

How Howard Stern ended his interview with Kamala Harris: “I think you'd be a great president. You're compassionate. I love your experience as a prosecutor and I want to thank you. I love you as Vice President. I want to encourage anyone who thinks similarly to me to vote." pic.twitter.com/73SmGO2xo4

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) October 9, 2024

From Colbert:

This was Stephen Colbert's opening monologue tonight of his interview with VP Kamala Harris. Holy shit. 🤣🔥 pic.twitter.com/zIWVpvZswc

— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) October 9, 2024

"They know how to pronounce my name!" -- rockstar reception tonight for Kamala Harris on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.bsky.social) October 8, 2024 at 11:00 PM

Even the band is excited!

And yes, she drinks beer:   

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Late Show (@colbertlateshow)

Now there's something you don't see every day!

Some odds and sods and bizarre news: 

Oh, yeah -- I forgot

So today was the day everyone who had been Covid vaccinated was supposed to die.

Everyone ok?

— RS Archer (@archer_rs) October 4, 2024

What people will remember from Bob Woodward's newest book:

And soon to be Madam president calls him a mother fuckerrrrrr🤣.

— Dump Trumpism: Register and Vote! (@Nto79549105) October 8, 2024

Evacuating Eden

...They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,

Through Eden took their solitary way.

- John Milton, Paradise Lost

I was going to do a post tonight on the Harris and Walz interviews, but the situation with Hurricane Milton is just too dire. Those poor people -- how many thousands are having to leave the homes they love, their own Eden?

Here are some of the tweets I saw tonight about this disaster:

NBC6's @JohnMoralesTV is the longest tenured TV meteorologist in south Florida. When he gets this serious, this emotional, on the air, viewers pay attention: pic.twitter.com/iiECZ8KaHx

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 7, 2024

The National Hurricane Center has increased the storm surge forecast to 10-15 feet for Tampa Bay.

This could flood tens of thousands of homes and cause over $10 billion in damage.@NWSTampaBay: "If Milton stays on its course this will be the most powerful hurricane to hit Tampa… pic.twitter.com/o3p1XNM4HQ

— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) October 7, 2024

Today's News: Truanons and Nuremberg 2.0 and understanding the damn question

So on Saturday this happened:

Angus Reid reposts a doctored video that misquotes the PM as if it's reality and we're supposed to accept his company's poll results are believable? I have a bridge to sell you if you believe a single thing that company puts out in future. pic.twitter.com/BLh6wn16bw

— Jean (@CdnJean) October 5, 2024

Of course, Reid had to withdraw his tweet -- he "didn't realize" he had been suckered by a doctored Trudeau video. 

I guess jumping to conclusions based on lies is the kind of thoughtful decision-making Canadians can expect from esteemed business leaders now?

Long Reads: The rise of stupidity; The analytic failures of the Russia-Ukraine War; and how presidential polls are always wrong

Last night I posted some long threads; tonight, I have several interesting "long reads" on topics I have frequently discussed on this blog:

   

The Stupid, It Burns!

Substack writer Black Cloud Six writes The New Normal: Living in the Age of Stupidity

Black Cloud describes this as "perhaps the most critical issue of our generation: the rise of stupidity."

He continues:

... Unfortunately, the entry of Donald Trump into the US political arena accelerated the tendency to accept all opinions—no matter how ridiculous or grounded in conspiracy—as being equal. Social media has magnified this tendency, as bizarre opinions and theories find validation among like-minded groups. How else can we explain the resurgence of Flat Earth conspiracies, chemtrails, "gang stalkers," and, most consequentially, anti-vaccine rhetoric?

...The last six months have shown just how fast this tendency is spreading. In what other reality could a major candidate’s claim that immigrants were eating pets not be disqualifying? Recently, the Premier of Alberta promised to "look into" chemtrails and raised questions with the US Department of Defense. That this is a fringe, lunatic conspiracy theory didn’t seem to matter. After all, aren’t all opinions valid? This trend has real-world consequences, which became evident when the province announced amendments to its Bill of Rights, which included overt anti-vaccine rhetoric. In virtually every sphere, conspiracies, falsehoods, and outright lies have entered mainstream discourse.

That traditional media gives a pass to such views and helps platform them isn’t helping. Conduct that would have been utterly disqualifying 20 years ago is now "normal," and views that would never have been discussed in public are now being mainstreamed. There may be eye-rolling when discussing flat earthers or the idea that migrants are eating pets, but it's not a lie if large numbers of people believe it, right? After all, it's the media's duty to entertain diverse voices and share both sides, even when one side is clearly ludicrous. The problem is that accepting such views has real-world consequences, as the folks in Springfield, Ohio, or those dealing with the latest whooping cough outbreak can tell you.

Long threads: best baseball announcers, North Carolina angels, hopeful happenings, boys will be boys, and some really big things

Here are some long threads that I liked. 

This is a lengthy post because I am including many of the tweets from these threads -- a reader told me once that people who aren't on X anymore aren't allowed to read their posts now. 

So first up, with the baseball post-season underway, here is a long thread about great baseball moments as described by great baseball commentators - such masters at creating verbal pictures. And at the best in my time was, of course, Vin Scully.

Want to add an embedded version of this one, whose excellence @TylerKepner rightly flagged, so everyone can listen here: The whole ninth inning of Vin Scully calling Sandy Koufax's perfect game Sept. 9, 1965 is eight minutes of free-flowing, off-the-cuff poetry. Vin was magical. pic.twitter.com/QVbDLPbdkj

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) October 4, 2024

Today's Comment: Boomers "are the most coddled political constituency"

In his column tonight, Bribes (Between The Lines Of Age) The LPC's Correct Tactical Choice, Evan Scrimshaw is writing about the Liberal decision to vote against the Bloc motion to raise Old Age Security and he gives us this gem of a paragraph. 

I have seldom read anything clearer or more direct about how we boomers are distorting politics:

The old and the soon to be old are the most coddled political constituency. God Forbid we tell the boomers that their McMansions might see a triplex down the street, but the young had to sacrifice years of their lives to stop a virus that mostly didn’t affect them. Our benefit is a government that refuses to say they want lower house prices, because once again God forbid we dare anger the old. It’s nice to see the Liberals get that the old should be the ones to swallow an imperfect set of options for once.

He is, of course, correct -- boomers bought our first houses 50 years ago, and we paid less for them than what most cars cost today.  Now houses cost 10 times more, which freezes millions of young people out of the housing market. 

Scrimshaw continues to discuss how these younger voters might be turned back into Liberal voters:

...What the government needs to do from here is clear, at least to me. They need to lean into the framework of generational equity, they need to accept that many childless young are fucked right now, and use the fall to set up a 2025 budget that addresses their concerns.

...And this is at least a wedge issue where the Tories are on the wrong side and the Liberals are on the right one, and where the public actually believes it’s a live issue. The problem with the abortion rhetoric is that Canadians don’t think Poilievre would actually roll back rights. Here, we have a unanimous CPC vote we can use as proof.

Summing it up:

The Liberals refusing to vote for another wealth transfer to boomers is the smartest thing they’ve done in years

— Evan Scrimshaw (@EScrimshaw) October 3, 2024

And on a side note:

UNPRECEDENTED: Aging boomer retires to free up job for someone youngerhttps://t.co/q3re3QZbzD #biden #kamala pic.twitter.com/Gmf0povNLm

— The Beaverton (@TheBeaverton) July 21, 2024

If Kamala because the nominee this is the most Gen X way to do it with a supremely qualified Xer being kept at bay for years and then a boomer dropping the job on them with no warning.

— Cake or Death (@Johngcole) July 21, 2024

Busy busy busy! Here's some stuff about Trudeau, the Jack Smith report, the US election, the Russia-Ukraine War

I have a feeling that things are going to just be crazy for the next five weeks. 

Tonight I am reading about a whole bunch of things -- the pressure on Trudeau to do something something, the Jack Smith bombshell report, the dark underside of the US election, sane-washing Trump, the Russia-Ukraine war -- and it is, I have to say, impossible to pick just one thing to talk about. 

So here are some posts, some links and some commentary. 

Pressure on Trudeau to do something something 

Trudeau did an interesting interview on the podcast of MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith  

And Paul Wells has covered it in a substack post: "Delivering the absolute best future" Justin Trudeau wants an election about his values 

Here are some excerpts:

...what drives Justin Trudeau? “Understanding that we are in a moment in this world where everything is changing. The way we work, the way AI works, the way geopolitics happens, the pressures on everything: The world is in a massive pivot moment right now. And we don’t know what the biggest issue is going to be.”

Here Trudeau is arguing that good instincts are better, in a storm, than easy remedies. ... “We don’t know what crises are going to hit the world. We only know there are going to be [crises]. And the question [is]: who has the capacity to respond?”

...“I do tend to get wrapped up in the long term,” he volunteers. This makes him brood about “the danger of squandering that lead we have, over so many of our competitors around the world — whether it’s on the environment and the green economy, whether it’s on child care and a responsible safety net, whether it’s on all sorts of different things.” If Canadians did something to blow that — “like electing a Conservative government that wants to bring us back to some past that never actually existed” — they would be jeopardizing “everything that we have been able to build that’s going to make the future so good for so many.”

Today's News: "A damning non-answer"

WALZ: Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election? VANCE: Tim, I'm focused on the future WALZ: That's a damning non-answer

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.bsky.social) October 1, 2024 at 8:41 PM

Wallace: JD Vance was still unable to say that Trump lost the election in 2020. And in that moment, I think everything that he did for 88 minutes was lost and wiped out by that inability to tell the truth pic.twitter.com/hgbbDDY9W9

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 2, 2024

https://t.co/8G0fPr4Q3v

— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) October 2, 2024

If anyone is wondering where J.D. Vance actually came from, check out Jamieson Foser's column tonight None of us should even know who JD Vance is How did this meritless husk of a man end up in a vice presidential debate?

...the guy is a deeply racist and sexist autocrat on the cusp of power — and he got here in large part because some of the most powerful and influential people in academia, news media, entertainment, and tech saw something in him they were desperate to promote. Merit didn’t have anything to do with it...

Lots of stuff here about where Vance came from and why the New York Times loved him. 

On a completely irrelevant side note:

I really 💕 how JD Vance matched his lipstick with his tie. pic.twitter.com/ypq8YRG59s

— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) October 2, 2024