"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Thursday 17 September 2015

THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS FRIGHTFUL

I try not to get hooked on American Presidential candidate races. It's hard.  We don't have anything like it in Canada.


On Tuesday, fifteen Republicans participated in a three hour uninterrupted debate hosted by CNN in the Reagan library.  Each candidate was clearly invested. Each was different. 

The audience was serious,attentive and respectful. The drama was the better for being real...so far as 
could be seen.

I don't pretend  familiarity with American political structure. I don't know why someone is the Junior Senator from Vermont or Omaha  Is it  because he is younger, won less votes or arrived after the senior  Senator. Come to think of it, I've  only ever heard reference to Junior never Senior Senator.

I  don't know how Congress fits into the picture. Or how a vote in Congress impacts on the Senate vote.

I  don't understand why Benjamin Netenyahu was invited to participate in the  American  debate on the Iran deal. 

Netenyahu leads a coalition government in Israel. His ally is an extreme right-wing fanatical religious 
Party. Israel is a social democracy. Netenyahu did not win a majority in the last Israeli election. 

So I don't understand why Republican candidates for the American Presidency see Netenyahu and Israel as one and the same. 

They  display so much hostility for President Obama and everything he represents for all the world to see ,while aligning themselves slavishly with the Israeli President. Whose interest is served.? 

The debate did not enlighten .

Still ... I like to watch the performance....the media analysis, the fact-checking that follows, the body language expert and finally, next day, the polls that test community reaction. 

It seems  the polls have little to do with the functionality of the final vote so I'm not sure how debates make a difference.

I will keep watching them anyway. 

If nothing else they distract me. 

18 comments:

Anonymous said...


The United States of America became the first "democracy" of the modern age. It actually borrowed much from France where several leaders of the future country spent many years, engaged in philosophical discussions about government.

The French Revolution began an "unlucky" 13 years after the U.S. was born.

The American Declaration of Independence and its Constitution are noble documents.

But the fact of a social evolution has turned the United States into an ungovernable quagmire populated by idiocy and ignorance and that is what you see when you watch these "debates."

Anonymous said...

The Americans are still going on about where their current president might or might not have been born.
But they seem to have missed that one of their new candidates for the job was born in Canada.

Anonymous said...

Frightful weather is ok since the start of duck hunting is tomorrow. Even better is lousy weather when deer
hunting season comes.

Anonymous said...

"The American Declaration of Independence and its Constitution are noble documents."

The American Declaration of Independence is a sham; the "Great Republic" is founded upon hypocrisy. The fact that two-thirds of the signatories of that document - which proclaimed that, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" - were slave-owners proves it.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, well they got past that, didn't they ? Maybe even went too far in the other direction to hear the
sides going at it now.

Anonymous said...


19:20

You go with the flow.

And the flow changes just as do the tides.

There is no such thing as a "perfect" constitutional document anywhere, any time.

Anonymous said...

And this is how our justice is system is an industry in its self. There are so many making money interpreting these constitutional documents, laws and court rulings. Family law is the number one money making industry. There was a bill that didn't pass last year. Bill-560 was a bill to amend the divorce act. It basically would have replaced part of the custody orders and would have instructed judges to allow an equal parenting order unless it was established that in wouldn't have been in the child's best interest. It failed. There were too many federal MP's that were lawyers previous to there their elected appointments with many lawyer friends that would have lost billions of $'s in revenue in lawyer and court fees if this Bill got past. Our system is not about "justice", it's about money. Always has always will be.

Anonymous said...

It really is silly when you hear about tiny little groups needing a " constitution ". They have no idea what they are talking about but, since others have " one ". so must they.

Anonymous said...

What I do not understand is the funding. Some of those guys have run before and done badly. Trucking all
over the country has got to be expensive. There are senators that charge off to every little brushfire and preach
their messages when one would think they would be working in Washington. None of them are wearing cheap
suits either.

Anonymous said...

Jonathan's is closed - the doors are chained.
Wonder if the mayor aw that one coming.

Anonymous said...

The bigger question is, does he even care?

Anonymous said...

My shameful distraction is that licensing clerk that looks like Eeyore with glasses in Kentucky.
She is my soap opera of Americana.

Anonymous said...

I know international tennis results get a mixed reception on your blog.
Still Andy Murray and his brother have taken Great Britain into the Davis cup semis for the first time in 39 years.
Interesting how they are English in the media when they win and Scots when they lose.

Anonymous said...


This lead story in The Globe and Mail timed and dated 2:31 pm September 20 is reason enough for Harper and his group of ignorant and inept hangers on to finish the election in dead last, preferably politically dead for years to come.

"Election forces Ottawa to drop back room bid for French warships -

Canada was actively pursuing - at the political level - the possible acquisition of the controversial French-built Mistral-class helicopter carriers, several defence, diplomatic and military industry sources have told The Canadian Press.

The effort has ground to a halt, largely because of the federal election campaign - and it may slip away entirely because the French are now in a position to entertain bids from other countries for the 22,000-tonne ships, originally built for Russia.

A series of international media reports have long put Canada on the short list of potential buyers, along with Egypt, India and Singapore.

The problem for Canada, according to defence sources, is that National Defence has done very little in the way of formal study on the long-term ownership costs and the hurdles of operating such sophisticated ships, which are capable of carrying 16 helicopters (which we don't have), 59 armoured vehicles, and more than 450 troops.

Nobody knows if these ships will make sense for Canada as they would require hundreds of millions of dollars worth of modifications to bring them in line with Canadian military standards. We are already spending more than these hundreds of millions to make elderly British submarines operable and we have owned these for more than a decade. And thank goodness the F-35 stealth fighter program has been put on hold; these involved in excess of $40 billion.

Is our national defence not an appropriate subject for discussion and debate during this malodorous election campaign?

Anonymous said...

Ok...So what? Canada was pursuing the ”possible” acquisition of a couple of helicopter carriers. They stopped this ”possible” pursuing because of the election. Where they not aloud to look into what these carriers could or could not do for our military and the potential costs? Who knows maybe they looked at these ships and said ”not for us”. I don't get it, Damn if they do spend money, damn if they don't.

Anonymous said...


20:04

Not sure if you're making more sense than Defence Dept.

Maybe this is like window shopping on a larger scale.

Anonymous said...

"Interesting how they are English in the media when they win and Scots when they lose."

No, they are never referred to as English, but they are British.

Anonymous said...

8:44
You have never heard of the " English side " ?