Recently in Baiting The Left Category

The Left constantly brags about how much more diverse it supposedly is than the Right. Yet when it comes to ideas, thought, and free speech, its views are narrower than a toothpick viewed sideways. Case in point is the recent hiring by The Atlantic of writer Kevin Williamson:

If strongly left-leaning but not specifically ideologically-purposed entities such as the Times, the Post, or The Atlanticdo as their critics seem to wish and cleanse their pages of conservative voices their critics deem unacceptable, then the loss to American intellectual life will be immense. Writers who wish to enjoy intellectual freedom will soon find that they're only truly "free" when working with people of like mind -- a condition that contributes immeasurably to cocooning, polarization, and intellectual stagnation.

Whether it's the media, or academia, or culture, the Left wants ALL dissenting voices cleansed. They will never stop trying to destroy the careers and lives of anyone who "dares" disagree with their group think.

I'm always interested in what members of the media are saying about Jordan Peterson so naturally I read this recent article. At least I tried to but it's so full of half truths and deliberate mis-characterizations that I gave up half way. Take this paragraph:

Experts on Canadian law said that Peterson was misreading the bill -- that the legal standard for "hate speech" would require something far worse, like saying transgender people should be killed, to qualify for legal punishment. This is an early example of what would become a hallmark of Peterson's approach as a public intellectual -- taking inflammatory, somewhat misinformed stances on issues of public concern outside his area of expertise.

The author makes this statement and then COMPLETELY IGNORES the entire Lindsay Shepherd fiasco.  Had many Canadians not risen up in her defence, is there any doubt that her academic career would have been ended before the end of 2017?  True, what happened to Shepherd did not directly test Bill C-16 but it clearly was an indication of how ferocious the supporters of this bill are to use everything in their power to destroy those who "dare" disagree with them.  That anyone supports a government that compels the use of certain speech is a clear sign of how messed up our society has become.

A quick review of the author's Twitter feed (scroll back to March 27, 2018), shows that he is obsessed with Peterson in a creepy stalker-like way.

This was an interesting graphic in a recent e-mail:

In comparison, Prager University has 70 million views per month. Not bad, but nothing compared to the Leftist Propaganda Machine.

Take some time to talk with your left-of-centre friends and figure out why they think the way they do. The power of the media is daunting.

rac·ism

ˈrāˌsizəm/

noun

The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or race.

As Victor Davis Hanson explains, with countless examples, in a brilliant new piece, one of the key underpinnings of the Modern Left is to identify, separate, and very much treat differently people with different racial identities.

Progressives, in fact, seem to like the protocols of the old Confederacy in lots of ways. Southern antebellum chauvinists once claimed that the culture south of the Mason-Dixon line was innately superior to the grubby, industrial wasteland of the north. A two-class system of masters and slaves allowed an elite the leisure and capital to pursue culture without the rat-race competition of a striving middle class. So blinkered was southern arrogance that its pre-war youth insisted that southern manhood, with its innate moral superiority, could defeat a much larger, richer, and more industrial North -- a myth dispelled early on at Shiloh.

Now the new cultural divide is not North vs. South, but the blue-state coasts versus the red-state interior. The map has changed, but the new mindset of the chauvinist, mutatis mutandis, is eerily the same. In blue-state doctrine, a sinking middle class in the interior deserves to fail. But an upscale hip and cool professional elite is properly thriving on the East and West Coasts as never before -- itself often supported by legions of poorly paid and mostly minority gardeners, housekeepers, and nannies who free up their supposed betters to pursue higher things without tending to the drudgery of diapers, cooking, and mowing.

Jan 16, 2018 - The infamous Cathy Newman / Jordan interview is aired on British TV and then published on YouTube. Newman is roundly and accurately chastised as the journalist equivalent of a thug, completely uninterested in "interviewing" Peterson and seemingly incapable of actually listening to what he is saying.

Mar 19, 2018 - A Guardian interview of Newman is published in which she portrays herself as an innocent, hapless woman oppressed by the patriarchy.

"The internet is being written by men with an agenda," she says. "Look at a woman's Wikipedia page and you can't believe a word of it." She has been monitoring her own, which has been rapidly edited back and forth in the past few weeks. "I wasn't prepared for the torrent of abuse after [the Peterson interview]. People say: 'Why don't you just block them?' But there were literally thousands of abusive tweets - it was a semi-organised campaign. It ranged from the usual 'cunt, bitch, dumb blonde' to 'I'm going to find out where you live and execute you'."

In any case, she is certain it can be fixed: the mockery and abuse of women in the public eye "is not an acceptable way of doing business in the 21st century. Either the social media companies have to grapple with that or governments will. It is not beyond the wit of man or machine to detect and sift 'cuntbitchwhore' from genuine satirical comment. It is corrosive to women, no matter how tough you are, to log on and see that torrent of abuse."

Future warning to all Canadians wishing to visit the United Kingdom:

"It would be better if people tried to solve some real problems rather than playing these idiot diversity games."

The posting of this article - After decades of pushing bachelor's degrees, U.S. needs more tradespeople - prompted this great wisdom from a childhood friend of mine:

I know quite a few tradespeople locally and they are all extremely busy, so it's not just a U.S. thing.

The problem is two-fold: First, starting in the 70s/80s, a culture popped up that looked down on learning trades, as if it were a second-class citizen compared to college or university.

So young people started going to university. Unfortunately that led to the second problem -- the type of degrees people were getting. Many degrees today are useless for making a living. But they were still more, "prestigious," than going to trade school.

For example, I like to read and have read many classics, I enjoy writing, I like music and am interested somewhat in politics, but to have a degree in any one of those, especially after paying through the nose for it, is not smart. I won't even get into women's studies or philosophy degrees.

If you're independently wealthy, then sure... go for it if that's what tickles your fancy. Otherwise it makes more sense to either get a degree doing something with computers, engineering, medicine, pharmacy and such, and if you don't or can't pursue those degrees, then seriously look at the trades.

And there's more. And even more.

An interesting story is unfolding in Southern California. Here are some of the headlines:

• Feds charge former Pasadena police spokesman with illegally selling more than 100 guns


• Pasadena police officer illegally sold more than 100 guns, some outlawed in California, feds say


• Pasadena police lieutenant indicted on charges of illegally selling around 100 firearms

But don't be so sure. Listen to Mark Geragos provide a very different version of the story, beginning about 3 minutes into this podcast.

Update: Podcast link fixed!

Make NO mistake, what Venezuela has become is precisely the road that SJWs are taking Western nations down.

Having listened to Dennis Prager for over a decade, I'd long ago learned that most Leftists are incapable of listening to, let alone understanding the views of conservatives. They're so deeply entrenched in their own echo chamber that they seem impervious to any ideas that don't meet the officially sanctioned Leftist narrative.

Traveling through SFO the other day, I saw the book, How Democracies Die, for sale. I had a strong suspicion of what it was about but held judgement until I did some research. Here is an extract:

America failed the first test in November 2016, when we elected a president with a dubious allegiance to democratic norms.

Donald Trump's surprise victory was made possible not only by public disaffection but also by the Republican party's failure to keep an extremist demagogue within its own ranks from gaining the nomination.

How serious is the threat now? Many observers take comfort in our constitution, which was designed precisely to thwart and contain demagogues like Trump. Our Madisonian system of checks and balances has endured for more than two centuries. It survived the civil war, the great depression, the Cold War and Watergate. Surely, then, it will be able to survive Trump.

Here's another article along the same line.

So, without opening the book, how did I possibly know that it would be a highly biased screed against Donald Trump? Please refer to the first paragraph above.

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt purport to be political scientists. The second half of that profession involves science, which is all about research and inquiry. Being a scientist does not mean having predetermined Leftist views and then forcing all data to adhere to those views.

If anyone ever gets the opportunity to interview either of these men, please ask them the following questions:

1. Is directing police and spy agencies to secretly monitor private conversations of your political opponents good or bad for democracy?
2. If senior members of the top police agency of a country decide that they will use their power to defeat a duly elected president, is that good or bad for democracy?
3. If the mainstream media mostly takes the side of one political party and constantly attacks another political party good or bad for democracy?
4. If most members of the mainstream media ignore facts coming out about the corruption and alleged illegal behavior of one political party, is that good or bad for democracy?
5. If a political leader, and those around her, are found to have accepted large donations from foreign entities, is that good or bad for democracy?
6. If people of one particular political stripe constantly call "racism" over everything they disagree with, is that good or bad for democracy?
7. If students and others are permitted to silence any speech on college campuses that they disagree with, is that good or bad for democracy?
8. If two Harvard professors, in the Political Science faculty of Harvard University, write a 320 page book about how democracies die and ignore all of the questions listed above, does that indicate they are more Leftist Political Hacks than scientists?

Anyone familiar with the The Matrix trilogy knows the meaning of "the glitch" term.

British journalist Jordan Greenhall recently published a deep analysis of the now infamous Peterson-Newman "debate":

It's too early to tell but one has reason to suspect that future historians will look back at this event as a pivotal marker of the definitive decline of the mainstream media.

I adore this woman:

• Brexit


• Snowflakes

A most fascinating and informative 20-minute podcast on the history of internal conflict in America can be heard here. Historical events are presented in a somewhat different way than you've likely heard before. For example,the Revolutionary War of Independence is described as what is really the first civil war in the land mass that eventually became America. Then came, what we call today, the American Civil War but at the time it wasn't exactly thought of that way. Now, in the second decade of the 21st Century, are we witnesses to the early stages of what future historians will call the 3rd U.S. Civil War?

Highly recommended listening and your thoughts on the discussion are much appreciated!

Do you remember Rachel Dolezal? She was drummed out of the public spotlight because of her false claims that she was African-American.

One then wonders why there is so much tolerance among Democrats for Elizabeth Warren's [allegedly] false claim that she has Native American heritage? Just a few days ago, in a bizarre speech, she tried to get past her fairy tale personal history story, as well as throwing President Andrew Jackson under the bus. Full text of her speech

Besides the "Faucahontas" moniker, SDA readers are encouraged to come up with other funny nicknames for the Delirious Lizzy W.

Update: Corrected the spelling of Lizzy's alias. More about this here.

Dalhousie University restricts search for new VP to 'racially visible' and Indigenous candidates -> Dalhousie University Commits Not to Hire Most Competent Candidate for New VP

Dalhousie University says its search for a new senior administrator will be restricted to "racially visible" and Indigenous candidates, part of its efforts to increase underrepresented groups on the Halifax campus.

In a memo to the university community, provost and vice-president academic Carolyn Watters said the prerequisite is in line with the principles of Dalhousie's employment equity policy.

"We have embarked on the process of selecting a new vice-provost student affairs," she stated in the memo last month, adding that the search "will be restricted to racially visible persons and Aboriginal Peoples at this time."

This isn't the first time this has happened in Canada. One needs to look no further than what the University of Victoria did, with justification provided here.

h/t William McNally and David Haskell

Congressman Adam "Pathfinder" Schiff appears to be America's answer to Jacques Clouseau. He was pranked by two Russian radio hosts. He has since claimed he knew what was going on but that's somewhat difficult to believe given that he sent his staff to try to collect "classified materials for the FBI".

For more than 7 months, John Batchelor and Thadeus McCotter have carefully documented the hilarious antics of the Pathfinder. It's truly amazing that anyone still takes him seriously.

h/t Kenji

Some brave women in Europe are tired of feeling afraid to go outside alone, fed up with being harassed, afraid of being raped. They are calling upon the people of Europe generally and the supporters of #MeToo specifically to stand behind them and provide their full, unequivocal support.

How long do you think they'll have to wait for the prominent women of the #MeToo movement to show support?

Alyssa Milano?  Eva Longoria?  Reese Witherspoon?  Oprah Winfrey?  Meryl Streep?  Your European sisters are crying out for your help and support.  When will you tweet the #120db hashtag?

If you live in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, here's hoping you can come out Wednesday evening and support Lindsay Shepherd:

The Laurier Society for Open Inquiry's first event is Wed. January 31.

Free & open to the public. Seating is first come first served.

We'll be screening the full episode of the panel discussion I showed in my tutorials & moderating a productive open floor discussion. pic.twitter.com/6tmbuImNbX

— Lindsay Shepherd (@NewWorldHominin) January 29, 2018

Even just capturing video on your camera or phone, and uploading it to YouTube, would be appreciated!

Faith Goldy describes the abysmal state of 2018 Ontario:

Yesterday Lindsay Shepherd posted a very interesting tweet:

Some literature handed out at the panel discussion I was on at @smuhalifax today. The bingo is kind of funny, but it is a SEVERE mistake for these activists to associate terms such as "critical thinking", "viewpoint diversity", and "open exchange of ideas" with the alt-right. pic.twitter.com/CFzYKlywDJ

-- Lindsay Shepherd (@NewWorldHominin) January 26, 2018

A supporter of hers published a related video.

The "Alt-Right Bingo" game the leftists in the audience were playing seems to imply that they think it is hilarious, and cause for derision, to talk about these things:

• Critical thinking
• Viewpoint Diversity
• Open exchange of ideas
• Traditional values
• Free speech space

These people apparently grew up in Canada but clearly don't hold anything resembling Canadian values.

I generally don't put anyone on pedestals but I have long admired Jordan Peterson. I've admired Karen Straughan even longer. In this video she carefully analyzes the infamous Channel 4 "interview":

Remember the professors who were recently interviewed by Jordan Peterson? One of them, David Millard Haskell, has just written a stinging article about The Shiny Pony:

Under the new rules, applicants must agree -- by marking a box on an electronic form -- that they respect charter rights, including "women's rights and women's reproductive rights." The office of the employment minister has said without the confirmation, an organization will not receive funding.

Religious organizations -- churches, youth camps, aid groups and so forth -- that hire students to assist them over the summer are frustrated. That's because many, especially conservative Protestant and Catholic organizations, believe a child in the womb is as valuable as a child born, and they see abortion as immoral. To give assent to abortion, even via a check mark on a government form, betrays their values and conscience.

In what might be the Left's worst nightmare since Donald Trump got elected, there is now a growing group of supporters hoping Ivanka Trump will run for president in 2024.

One might think that many women on the left would support the notion of a female president - especially one, who by all accounts, is quite "progressive" in her thinking. But one also needs to understand that to Leftists, Ivanka Trump is not a woman. She's just an evil right-winger, the daughter of the man they have been indoctrinated to despise.

Dec. 21, 2017 - Nancy Pelosi predicts cataclysmic results with the Republican tax bill

. . . 27 days later . . .

Jan 17, 2018 - Apple commits to paying "a one-time tax of $38 billion on its overseas cash holdings and ramp up spending in the U.S."

But ... but ... but Pelosi represents the Party that has all the "brilliant people" in it? Isn't that what we're constantly told by the MSM and Academia?!?

Bruce Allen destroys Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson with FACTS.

The Vancouver Courier's Mike Klassen chimes in:

You allowed the public service to become politicized, and would not let the city's staff speak directly with media. You decried the actions of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, yet city hall's communications department turned into a PMO-like fortress.

You surrounded yourself with political operatives who attacked your opponents on social media. You were caught describing credible community voices as f***ing hacks.

You let donors flood your political coffers, and spent more money on elections than anyone in the city's history. Your party changed Vancouver political campaigns by making them expensive, American-style, year-round affairs with full-time staff.

h/t Maxine Kennedy

An interesting story out of France throws cold water on the #MeToo witch hunt:

France's most revered actress Catherine Deneuve hit out Tuesday at a new "puritanism" sparked by sexual harassment scandals, declaring that men should be "free to hit on" women.

She was one of around 100 French women writers, performers and academics who wrote an open letter deploring the wave of "denunciations" that has followed claims that Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein raped and sexually assaulted women over decades.

They claimed that the "witch-hunt" that has followed threatens sexual freedom.

David Brooks has been no fan of Donald Trump. He still isn't. But he has written a very interesting column that challenges the sincerity of his fellow Anti-Trumpers:

I mention these inconvenient observations because the anti-Trump movement, of which I'm a proud member, seems to be getting dumber. It seems to be settling into a smug, fairy tale version of reality that filters out discordant information. More anti-Trumpers seem to be telling themselves a "Madness of King George" narrative: Trump is a semiliterate madman surrounded by sycophants who are morally, intellectually and psychologically inferior to people like us.

In case anyone convinced you that Lindsay Shepherd's travails were an isolated incident, think again.

The Wilfrid Laurier SJWs could have their deepest wishes fulfilled by replacing Deborah MacLatchy with Evergreen State College's George Bridges:

For those not familiar with what happened in Washington State, here's an excellent synopsis of the Evergreen State College Madness.

There's an old adage that "my enemy's enemy is my friend". This seems to be about the only way to explain why Leftists in the West, particularly much of the MSM, have dismissed the cries for freedom of Iranians:

Starting last Thursday, Iranians by the hundreds of thousands began expressing that disappointment along with rising anger -- risking their lives by staging protests in more than two dozen cities across the country. As I write this, an estimated 15 protestors have been killed by government forces. Hundreds have been arrested.

Much of the Western media has downplayed this upheaval. Others have asserted that the protests are just about "a sluggish economy" and "an increase in the price of eggs" -- in other words, apolitical and non-ideological.

The chants being heard in the streets tell a different tale. Among them: "We don't want an Islamic Republic!" "Death to the Dictator!" "Mullahs Must Get Lost!" "The Clerics Act Like Gods!" Death or freedom!" "Leave Syria, think about us!" "Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life for Iran!" Also this statement of grim determination: "We will die. [But] we will take back Iran." No, it's not just the economy, stupid.

They're practicing for long-term intimate relationships, you blind, bloody fools; you appalling, pathetic, ignorant do-gooding meddlers. Leave the damn kids alone. https://t.co/c71QZzv597

— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) January 7, 2018

Excerpted from her upcoming book, author Emily Chang provides a little glimpse into what the "enlightened", "progressive" folks in Silicon Valley are up to:

About once a month, on a Friday or Saturday night, the Silicon Valley Technorati gather for a drug-heavy, sex-heavy party. Sometimes the venue is an epic mansion in San Francisco's Pacific Heights; sometimes it's a lavish home in the foothills of Atherton or Hillsborough. On special occasions, the guests will travel north to someone's château in Napa Valley or to a private beachfront property in Malibu or to a boat off the coast of Ibiza, and the bacchanal will last an entire weekend. The places change, but many of the players and the purpose remain the same.

The stories I've been told by nearly two dozen people who have attended these events or have intimate knowledge of them are remarkable in a number of ways. Many participants don't seem the least bit embarrassed, much less ashamed. On the contrary, they speak proudly about how they're overturning traditions and paradigms in their private lives, just as they do in the technology world they rule. Like Julian Assange denouncing the nation-state, industry hotshots speak of these activities in a tone that is at once self-congratulatory and dismissive of criticism. Their behavior at these high-end parties is an extension of the progressiveness and open-mindedness--the audacity, if you will--that make founders think they can change the world. And they believe that their entitlement to disrupt doesn't stop at technology; it extends to society as well. Few participants, however, have been willing to describe these scenes to me without a guarantee of anonymity.

Wilfrid Laurier embarrassed itself internationally in 2017 for its horrendous treatment of Lindsay Shepherd. But its unfair treatment of employees doesn't stop there. As Christie Blatchford has reported, a secretive group within the university suddenly gave raises to select employees based solely on their gender:

In the small finance group at the university's business and economics school, for instance, the two women who were hired at the same time as male colleagues and paid the same, received a raise of about $6,000 each, leaving the 13 men far behind. That hike is much larger than the typical increase for merit pay.

The raises, announced out of the blue last May, were three per cent for all of Laurier's female professors and 3.9 per cent for all female associate professors, and were retroactive to July of 2016. Depending on the stage of their careers, the hike may also mean a big boost to their pensionable earnings.

The university has estimated the raise for 119 associate professors and 33 full professors will add $680,000 to its base costs.

The "smell" test for such things is simple: If such raises were only given to men, would this not be front-page news for weeks? Given that a good portion of Wilfrid Laurier's funding comes from taxpayers, how can anyone possibly justify this?

h/t William McNally

It is unfortunate that as a political party that invokes Karl Marx, you mock the importance of freedom of expression.

"Marx was a harried newspaper editor who fled Prussian censorship. He was a strong believer in free expression and, especially freedom of the press." - My prof https://t.co/OTh8axBm7D

— Lindsay Shepherd (@NewWorldHominin) December 31, 2017

Some choice comments:

You know you're doing the right thing when your critic's political beliefs were responsible for the death of 120 million people in the 20th century.

Nowhere, in the history of the world, has any communist party ever supported freedom of expression. Communism is a philosophy of force and anger...

What if a referendum on Free Speech were held federally in Canada on July 1st, 2018. Assume there were 3 options and the one garnering the most votes would become the law of the land.

When it comes to Free Speech in Canada, I would prefer to see the following enacted as federal law:

1. Something akin to the First Amendment in America, where anyone can pretty much say anything, no matter how 'hateful' some might perceive it.


2. Keep things as they are currently.


3. Make the hate laws stronger to be more encompassing, with stronger penalties.

2017 - A Change.org petition successfully convinced Squarespace.org to remove all "white supremacist" websites it was hosting.

2017-2018 - Squarespace continues to host a number of racist and/or highly racialized websites:

• young-writers.squarespace.com/black-lives-matter-movement/


• law4blacklivesdc.com/


• celebrateblm.com/

P.S. It goes without saying but needs to be c-l-e-a-r-ly s-p-e-l-l-e-d out to all SJWs that nothing about this post lends even the tiniest bit of support to white supremacists. Squarespace has caved into a politically correct initiative to censor people of one particular viewpoint. They're a private company so they're absolutely entitled to not accept the business from anyone they choose. The double-standard is pretty glaring though.

Douglas Lain is a self-proclaimed man of the Left. He's a writer and the publisher of Zero Books. Besides CBC News, his podcast is the first one of a left-wing bent that has invited Lindsay Shepherd to speak publicly.

You can listen to the interview here. It's well worth listening to in full. Also check out the comments to witness a very different reality, such as this "brilliance" from 'daniel':

I love the fact that right wingers have appropriated the free speech position... As Marx gains in popularity, it will test their position and may prevent neo-McCarthyism... I went to a Marxist talk at Ryerson, and trump supporters (in Canada I know it's weird) pulled the fire alarm to try and end the talk... this really wasn't something of great interest to the media.

As Rex Murphy has eloquently alluded to, if you think that Lindsay Shepherd's "win" is the end of the Free Speech battle in Canadian schools, you are sadly mistaken.

Benjamin Boyce carefully analyzes what's going on:

An important factoid: Dr. Laura Mae Lindo is the director of Wilfrid Laurier's Diversity and Equity Office. She is also an NDP candidate. Even though Ms. Lindo is the boss of Adria Joel, one third of the tribunal that unfairly persecuted Lindsay Shepherd, to date she has offered absolutely no public apology. One can only speculate why.

#FreeSpeech #LindsayToo #SJWTotalitarianThugs

Blogger Malcolm Pollack has taken the time to document Tucker Carlson's marathon tweeting session. listing the Top 100 "Racist" things in 2017. Priceless.

This discussion is over 2 hours long but is honest, bold, and very important for ALL Canadians to watch:

Thanks to Google Translate, we can get a glimpse at how people in Hungary are viewing the idiocy that is Canada's Modern Left:

Canada is one of the most liberal countries in the world, and this is what the loving Canadians are always trying to emphasize. But now it seems that this is at a certain point in ultra-liberalism much closer to a dictatorship. Slowly, the Canadians will realize that this is not so good.

Last year I saw a video in which a Canadian university instructor, Jordan Peterson, was aggressively attacked by his students and did not really allow him to express his opinion according to ultraliberal viticulture. Why would they have left it because, according to their point of view, it was a bit nonsense stupid, so they did not have to listen. The video is shocking, and the theme is even more: gender neutrality. In Canada, there is a law that can not be used by men or women with personal pronouns, simply referring to "he" or "she", but to use the one he chooses. They quickly received more than a dozen. Whoever does not comply with this law discriminates and commits a criminal offense. One of the most serious opponents of this is Peterson, who has been fighting since then, has talked to TV shows - when they are listening.

And this was already a good part of the Canadians, which revived the debate, which is not about gender neutrality, but about freedom of speech. Can the students be taught critical thinking, freely presenting the opposite opinions, or is it just a hate to the freedom of speech? But it looks like they are slowly waking up in Canada, they can be very liberal, but at one point liberal ideas will hit each other. The winner will surely be the site that first believes that they are more equal than the others.

To all of our dear (and incredibly humorous) SDA regulars, we pose a very simple question: If the birth of Christ were somehow known to be occurring in rural Saskatchewan tomorrow, what sorts of tweets and blog entries might we see in advance of it?

Put on your tightest SJW, virtue signalling, environmentally friendly, holier than thou hat and start typing! :-)

Any knowledgeable Canadian knows that we don't have actual free speech rights. Lindsay Shepherd's ongoing battle with the totalitarian thugs who have infested Canadian academia is proof positive. But our American neighbours often brag about how their free speech rights are guaranteed by the First Amendment. Try telling that to Zachary Wood, a senior at Williams College in Massachusetts. Here's an account of what he has endured, fighting the Leftist no-free-speech-for-you totalitarians:

The intolerant academic Left has a determined foe in Zachary Wood and that is especially remarkable because he describes himself as a liberal Democrat. Last summer he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on the state of free speech on our college campuses. This Heterodox Academy article contains a link to the video of his testimony.

Alerting the members of the Committee (and anyone else who is willing to listen) about the way college campuses have become hostile terrain for anyone who questions leftist beliefs, Wood stated, "At Williams, the administration promotes social tolerance at the expense of political tolerance. In my time at Williams, I cannot name a single conservative speaker that has been brought to campus by the administration. In classrooms, liberal arguments are often treated as unquestionable truths. In some cases, conservative students even feel the need to refrain from stating their opinion in fear of being shutdown, or strongly disliked for doing so."

It's a deplorable state of affairs when college students - especially at an elite school - won't listen respectfully to speakers and indulge in virtue signaling by turning their backs on other students who favor dialogue and civility.

Rex Murphy brilliantly sums up the deliberate, dangerous turn the MSM has decided to head in:

When the majority of the American media failed in their coverage of the presidential election, they had to find some excuse for their massive incompetence. The New York Times, with all their resources, and after two full years of daily coverage of the campaign, was nonetheless projecting Hillary Clinton's chances of victory at a full 92 per cent on election night itself. That was at least better than the pathologically anti-Trump HuffPost, which had Hillary's chances set at a modest 98 per cent! Such was the state of American journalism, these companies barely allowed for the mere possibility that Trump could win. Under their professional eye, he was just a sideshow, even in the very hours before he actually won.

These two--the Times and HuffPost--can stand for a large set of the American press, both traditional and online. Their reading of the American election was the greatest journalistic failure--the largest act of group incompetence--in decades. This failure fostered the need for some excuse for how they got so much so wrong.

Interesting listening

An analysis of Vicky Mochama's racist dismissal of Shepherd.

Trigger warning: Mochama appears on the latest episode of TVO's The Agenda. However, the always interesting Jen Gerson also shares her thoughts.

#LindsayToo   #FreeSpeechMatters

2017: A large percentage of 18 to 34 year old millennials are moving back in with their parents and fretting about losing their parents' health care benefits when they reach the age of 26.

1944: Millions of young men between 18 to 34 stormed the beaches of Europe to free the innocent people trapped under Nazi rule.

This was one of the few original policy positions Scheer had during the leadership that I agreed with. I'm glad to see that he's taking action on it.

Especially in the era of University star-chambers.

He's optimistic about dealing with the issue in the years ahead, explaining that he recently met with the non-profit group Universities Canada and they showed interest in tackling these sorts of problems.

"I don't believe many people are satisfied with the status quo other than a group of very small radicals," Scheer said.

No formal complaint triggered Wilfrid Laurier teaching assistant's censure

So now we have a clear cut case of 3 people in power persecuting an innocent young woman. When will All THREE OF THEM be fired?!?

#LindsayToo #FreeSpeech

On CBC Sunday Scrum today, a panelist (@vmochama) says that I'm just a crying white girl, and because of my "hard right" views (...?) I'm not the appropriate person to have launched a discussion about freedom of speech. Starts at about 6:10 https://t.co/H6IIPXFKVe

— Lindsay Shepherd (@NewWorldHominin) December 17, 2017

You can watch the clip here, fast forwarding to 6:08:

Around 7:01, Vicky Mocharma espoused her extremely racist views, dismissing a fellow Canadian's merely because of the colour of her skin. Does this meet with the CBC Ombudsman's standards? The litmus test is simple: Replace the pundit with someone of a lighter skin tone and envision them dismissing the views of a person because the other was Black/Muslim/Asian/Aboriginal. Would that pundit ever be on the CBC again?

For the record, I fully support Vicky Mocharma to demonstrate that she's a racist, race-baiter, and extremely shallow thinker anytime she wants. As Mark Steyn has been apt to say, bright spotlight [on such views] is the best disinfectant.

Correction: Astute reader MJ pointed out that it was US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis who originally said what Mark Steyn often reiterates. The full quote, from 1914, is:

Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.

Popular vlogger Matt Christiansen tears apart recent critics of Jordan Peterson in a brilliant rant:

How to ensure that there will never be a second date: https://t.co/W2qwqeKRko via @evrydayfeminism pic.twitter.com/AxGwwArIYK

— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) December 16, 2017

Prior to Professor Peterson's comment, one might want to ask such a woman a simple question: Why would you, a person who CLEARLY hates men, possibly want to go on a date with one?

If an investigator has predetermined beliefs of how an investigation shall turn out, does that constitute an honest inquiry or something more akin to a witchhunt?

Rob Centa, managing partner at Paliare Roland, has frequently tweeted about diversity and inclusion in law from his professional account, including his support for a controversial new requirement for lawyers that critics characterize as "forced speech."

The Law Society of Upper Canada licenses lawyers and paralegals in Ontario, where WLU is based. It started reminding legal professionals in September to submit a "Statement of Principles" confirming their "obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion," and rejected a proposed exemption for "conscientious objectors" earlier this month.

Update: On her Twitter account, Lindsay Shepherd just referenced this "statement" from the Wilfrid Laurier Faculty Association. This is the antithesis to free speech and illustrates Deborah MacLatchy's earlier statements to be beyond hollow.

Maclean's has just published a new article on the Wilfrid Laurier free speech fiasco.

What caught my eye though was the juxtaposition of a few paragraphs about Jordan Peterson combined with an inset photo link to a past attack on Jordan Peterson specifically and all conservatives generally:

This other article is penned by none other than the always bloviated Tabatha Southey. I would LOVE to see her in a debate with Peterson or Ben Shapiro or Dennis Prager. They would make mincemeat out of her. Oh wait, according to the new rules of the Left, I've just caused violence against Ms. Southey because, don't you know, words are violence, up is down, and green is yellow.

A young woman in the Toronto area speaks her truth:

Yikes pic.twitter.com/CNNMGQQSVe

— Lindsay Shepherd (@NewWorldHominin) December 10, 2017

Here is her Twitter account. Yet we've been repeatedly told that Lindsay Shepherd is the problem. Uh huh.

Here's a past posting of hers:

What do you think are the chances that someone in Toronto's Pakistani community will come forth and report her to the police for making death threats towards another Canadian citizen?

Popular YouTube vlogger [the] Sargon of Akkad breaks down the game tape of the recent TV Ontario episode on the lack of free speech on university campuses:

Something very suspicious is now occurring at Wilfrid Laurier University:

Investigation has begun and the plot thickens.

There is no documentation of any 'complaint.'

The concern could've been discussed face-to-face with Rambukkana, sure. But with no evidence, how will I ever know what was truly said by the complainant? pic.twitter.com/hss84XH711

— Lindsay Shepherd (@NewWorldHominin) December 6, 2017

Sometimes life is stranger than fiction. A British firm calling itself Women To Look Up To is selling tree topper "angels" of none other than Hillary Clinton.

The perfect gift for the Radical Leftist near you!

Last week I posted a link to Lindsay Shepherd's interview with L.A. based Dave Rubin, noting that the Canadian story had gone international. Turns out that Lindsay's courage has inspired a female UK blogger named Catherine Kitsis to publish her first video:

Like Lindsay and our very own Kate McMillan, Kitsis is eloquent and full of wisdom. She offers some great insight into the minds of SJW Snowflakes as to "why" they get so incredibly upset at the viewpoints of anyone who disagrees with them. It would be fascinating to hear Jordan Peterson discuss this with Kitsis.

As an added gift, Kitsis has painstakingly transcribed one of the diatribes of interrogator Herbert Pimlott at Lindsay Shepherd's Kangaroo Court of Injustice. This transcription will be a great asset for future historians who try to make sense of the madness that has infected the unenlightened minds of so many entrusted to teach at universities in 2017.

The National Post has given Lindsay Shepherd the opportunity to share her recent experiences in her own words. It's eloquent and brilliant. It should be mandatory reading for university and high school students across Canada.

WLU's interrogation of my decision to air two sides of a topical debate was so troubling because it revealed that these educators don't believe critical thinking matters, or that they fear students exercising critical thought might lead them to politically incorrect conclusions. If that's the case, how can these departments justify charging students for these degrees?

Trigger Warning: This very interesting conversation between a Swede and a Canadian will likely provoke many ideas and new thoughts you heretofore may not have had.

If you're a Social Justice Warrior, here's a standard set of tactics to get your way:

1. Proclaim anything you wish, no matter how ludicrous.


2. If anyone dares disagree with you, call them a racist, bigot, homophobe, or Islamophobe.


3. If they dare object, scream at them that they are out of order and to stop interrupting you.


4. Start shaking and crying, proclaiming how passionate you are about what you're saying.


5. Do whatever you need to do to make yourself out to be the victim.

Now that you understand this playbook, watch New Brighton, Minnesota mayor Val Johnson follow this script:

Wilfrid Laurier Graduate Student Lindsay Shepherd was down in Los Angeles to be interviewed by Dave Rubin of the Rubin Report:

Any fair-minded person will perceive her to be a completely reasonable person who has conducted herself in a kind and empathetic manner throughout this ordeal. The more intelligent radical leftists already know that the jig is up. While they are now scrambling to double down on her and to get Jordan Peterson fired, ultimately they're going to lose.

N.B. If you're a Canadian university student or graduate, please consider joining this free speech Facebook group.

One of John Conyers' accusers has gone public.

Now let's see what happens.

Lest we forget, less than one week ago Nancy Pelosi was calling Conyers an "icon"! How times change.

Aadita Chaudhury is a Toronto-based university student and writer. A quick review of her Twitter feed reveals that she doesn't like white people very much. Her favourite terminology includes words like: Nazi, white supremacy, fascism, and racism. In summary, she is the perfect archetype of a Social Justice Warrior (SJW).

As Jordan Peterson and PhD student Christine Brophy have discussed in detail before, Radical Leftists like Chaudhury have a strong tendency to have personality disorders.

Recently Ms. Chaudhury penned an attack piece on Lindsay Shepherd:

In the end, it is at the very least clear that Shepherd is no Joan of Arc of free speech as many have modeled her to be. Free speech doesn't excuse for incompetence or passing off falsehoods as "equally valid positions", which was the issue at hand, nor does it give her the right to hold court on whether trans identities are real, as if their lives are up for debate. It's true that Laurier did a rather poor job of handling all of this, but I do think they threw an untenured professor of colour under the bus to avoid media scrutiny. His only mistake was comparing Jordan Peterson to someone who committed genocide, when in reality, he is better compared to someone who denies genocide ever happened.

Aadita Chaudhury clearly seems to fit the dictionary definition of "racism", though undoubtedly she would insist that it's impossible for someone with her pigmentation to be a racist. Uh huh. The most fascinating thing about her screed is that she is using her free speech rights to try to justify squelching the free speech rights of another Canadian. That irony is thicker than molasses on a winter day in Northern Ontario.

Dear Canadian University Alumni:

In 2018, please strongly consider writing to the chancellors and presidents of your alma mater, demanding that they send out a letter similar to the one from the University of Chicago before the start of the Fall semester. Be sure to add that your future donations will be contingent on their actions to do this.

Strongly related:

Excellent. An updated list of professors to avoid at Wilfrid Laurier University (if you aren't already avoiding the whole school). Take note, #Laurier students who enjoy thinking for themselves and debating societal topics openly. https://t.co/iJOa2jUh8F

— Lindsay Shepherd (@NewWorldHominin) November 27, 2017

In their latest podcast, Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew Pinsky spend a good portion of their time talking about Dr. Jordan Peterson and the never-ending "end game" of Social Justice Warriors / Post Modernists / Neo Marxists. Make no mistake, their objective is to completely change the way Western society operates. Their number one goal is to eradicate white males out of all positions of power. A very interesting comparison is made with Radical Islamists who wish to impose Sharia Law in the West. Remember, your enemy's enemy is your friend. Dr. Drew related how a large proportion of SJWs have a personality disorder.

Reading through Lindsay Shepherd's Twitter feed is an enlightening and yet disturbing insight into the sickness that appears to have deeply infected the minds of many Canadian academics. Here are some "gems" gleaned from what was posted there:

• Greg Bird, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University


• Griffin Epstein, Sessional and Partial-Load Professor, School of Social and Community Services, George Brown College

Lest we forget, this is the video that started everything. It's enlightening to see how accurate Jordan Peterson was. One wonders how Kirk Kirkup feels to have been proven so wrong, so quickly? This is summed up very well by the "Sargon of Akkad" in this video.

"The Cord" has been Wilfred Laurier University's student newspaper since 1926. They just published a rather bland editorial on the recent & horrendous kangaroo court proceeding that TA Lindsay Shepherd was put through. What's much more interesting is the long comment purportedly penned by an employee at Laurier:

As an employee at Laurier, I feel relieved that the public is beginning to know the horror of working in what has come to feel like an indoctrination camp run by Thought Police. As far as I am aware, everyone at this university has been forced to attend a workshop, led by two young women, who introduced us to the Newspeak: gender neutral pronouns. We were told that those who reject this approach to pronoun use are transphobic. In other words, the old pronouns are an "unapproved thought." Continued use of the old, gender-specific pronouns was not open to discussion. That, apparently, would be a subversive line of thinking.

The author makes reference to the Chinese Cultural Revolution. If you're not familiar with it, this short video is well worth watching.

The transgender anti-free speech militia is but the latest example of where Leftists in Canada and America want our society to head. Most are too naive and dense to understand that all such group think movements end up with totalitarianism but there is no other possible destination if these tyrants are not stopped.

UPDATE: Wilfred/Wilfrid spelling corrected (Thanks, "Top Gun"). Must read column by Rex Murphy (h/t TimR):

So if Laurier really wants to apologize, instead of confining itself to the particular case, it might want to regard how it created its own climate of intolerance to varying perspectives, how the reflex of its three professors went immediately to turning on the heretic, rather than examining how their faculty went so quickly to quashing a valid exchange of thought. It might want to examine the cloying righteousness and condescension on full display in the taped session and ask from whence came the bland certitude, slipshod intellection, and presumptuous righteousness so characteristic of her interrogators.

That might offer grounds for a repentant apology of some value and worth. And let it be noted that Laurier is far from alone in this; it's just the particular university that got caught with the door open.

Here's a common narrative from the Leftist playbook:

1. Decide upon a major societal change, which few people agree with.


2. Convince your Leftist friendly politicians to enact legislation supporting this change.


3. Anytime anyone dares publicly disagree with this change, get your apparatchiks to declare them hateful.


4. If some disagreeing won't stop, then pull out the Hitler card.

Such is precisely what occurred recently at Wilfred Laurier University:

A Wilfrid Laurier University teaching assistant has been identified as "transphobic" and sanctioned for last week showing her class an excerpt of a video debate involving the controversial University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson.

In fact, her supervising professor, Nathan Rambukkana, told her that by showing the video to her "Canadian Communication in Context" class, "it basically was like ... neutrally playing a speech by Hitler ..."

Lindsay Shepherd, a 22-year-old graduate student at the school in Waterloo, Ont., was informed that merely by showing the clip, taken from a televised debate between Peterson and Nicholas Matte, a lecturer at the U of T's Sexual Diversity Studies program, she was "legitimizing" Peterson's views about genderless pronouns.

She has been told that she must now submit her lesson plans to her supervisor in advance, that he may sit in on her next few classes and she must "not show any more controversial videos of this kind."

Further to the attacks on Jordan Peterson, if one dares speak out against those attacking him then those like Darren Cheng will step in to support the efforts to squash Free Speech. In and around Remembrance Day this is especially repugnant.

Remember the impassioned speech at the Air Force Academy Preparatory School by Lt. General Jay Silveria? While his words were honest and heartfelt, unfortunately the origins of the racial epitaphs were not. More here.

The Smear - excerpt

Google/YouTube is a private company, not the government. So is it perfectly fine for them to restrict content based on political ideology?

More here

5 Things to Know About Paul Manafort's Arrest in the Mueller Trump-Russia Probe

I'll direct you to law prof Glenn Reynolds for analysis and updates -- As Andy McCarthy sort-of predicted last night, it's about money for Ukraine, tax fraud, etc.

In a recent appearance on Adam Carolla's podcast, Dave Rubin referred to this interview with Larry Elder as finally removing the blinders from his leftist eyes. Rubin's producers wanted this segment to be suppressed. Rubin refused.

My name is Noah Lew, I am a 3rd year undergraduate student at McGill University, and I am Jewish. This is my story.

Than I am that they're bringing back a Roseanne spin-off.

That's the real crime, here.

Hey MSM, BLM, and Leftists generally, can we start with the epidemic of murders in Chicago?

Don't take my word for it. Read Laura Perrins' recent blog post:

Professor Michael Petersen said: 'In all three countries [Norway, Sweden and Denmark], physically strong males consistently pursued the self-interested position on redistribution. However, physically weak males were more reluctant to assert their self-interest - just as if disputes over national policies were a matter of direct physical confrontation between individuals.'

Professor Peterson again: 'While many people think of politics as a modern phenomenon, it has, in a sense, always been with our species. Political views are designed by natural selection to function in the conditions recurrent over human evolutionary history.'

Victor Davis Hanson has just published a superb column on the collective aims of Leftists across America:

The old liberal idea that the new demography is progressive destiny did not work out as planned. When the Blue Wall crumbled; Hillary Clinton lost a sure-thing election. Large Latino populations in red Texas and blue California are not likely to turn either one into a swing state. Inner-city voters so far have not transferred prior record levels of turn-out and bloc voting to candidates of the Hillary Clinton sort. Identity politics did not ensure that the white liberals who created it were always exempt from the natural boomerang of their own ideology.

Most Americans are quite willing to concede spheres of partisanship -- but not lawlessness. Some colleges, such as Evergreen State or UC Berkeley, while public and tax-supported, are, by definition, leftist in the manner that a private Hillsdale College or Saint Thomas Aquinas are traditionalist and conservative. But whereas the latter are calm and tolerant of dissent; the former, with public monies, are hysterical and often Stalinist when confronted by opposing views. That disconnect is unsustainable.

An Antifa member, and proud supporter of the Democrat Party, explains his world view:

Update: As our astute commenters have noted, I was fooled by the authenticity of this video. A vivid reminder indeed to be aware of #FakeNews ... though I strongly suspect that many actual Antifa members wouldn't be too dissimilar.

h/t doowleb

Harmeet Dhillon is a prominent lawyer in San Francisco. Born in India, she emigrated to America with her parents at the age of two. She attended Dartmouth University. She founded the Dhillon Law Group and now defends assorted conservative people and organizations who have had their civil rights trampled upon.

This past weekend she was featured on a podcast with hosts Adam Carolla and Mark Geragos. If you'd like to hear an honest, refreshing conversation of common sense then this is the best podcast you'll hear all week.

A good portion of what they discuss is the turmoil around Ben Shapiro speaking at University of California, Berkeley ... you know that place which once deeply valued free speech. No longer, it seems. But perhaps after they start losing an endless string of lawsuits and have to pay out enormous sums of money, maybe they'll finally wise up. Here's the video of Shapiro's lecture and the Q&A that followed.

Something very peculiar recently happened to a single father in Vancouver:

A single father, Crook is trying to teach his kids aged five to 11 to be independent and able to navigate Vancouver without his supervision.

He started by taking them on public transit -- including their 45-minute trips to school -- to teach them how that works. Over time, he began allowing the older four to go without him on their commute to school.

But somebody complained and the Ministry of Children and Family Development swooped in, investigated and sent Crook a letter warning him of its "protection concerns."

Mr. Crook has his own blog, which is very fascinating.

Watching the news of late, it has become clear that many people on the Left, and most in the mainstream media, are cheerleaders for Antifa. In searching for an explanation of this phenomenon, three different items came to the fore:

• ANTIFA: Media Backed Terrorists


• Firmly inside the echo chamber


• A former Antifa member speaks out

Pray for an asteroid - 'cause you're going to get a lotta, lotta dead Communists.

Than anywhere else in Canada.

The NDP came closest to forming government when it nearly swept Quebec in 2011, but the province has now largely turned its back on the social-democratic party and tuned out of its ongoing leadership race, a new Léger poll has found.

Who attempts to destroy history by pulling down statues?

2001: Afghanistan: The Taliban remove the Buddhas of Bamiyan Footnote

2017: America: Rabid Leftists are pulling down statues across the country. For now they're focused on Confederate soldiers. But it won't stop there.

To start off your week on the right note, here's a great discussion between Bill O'Reilly and Adam Carolla about the entitled millenials and fascist leftists who have taken over college campuses.

For dessert, listen to Carolla pick apart the vacuous mind of a UCLA professor who tried to stop Dennis Prager from conducting the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra.

For more than half a year, we have seen a non-stop barrage of "news" reports that Russia has corrupted the American political process and more than a few people in the Trump administration. Now, all of a sudden, we're being told that there are Nazis everywhere - be very, very scared!

If the MSM started reporting that Martians have infiltrated high offices in the U.S. government, using mind control to hide their identity, how many Democrat supporters would believe it? No less than 75% I suspect.

Video

A few minutes in a young woman states that a fellow with a Trump shirt has no right to be on the grounds of city hall. That reminded me of how an NDP thug once told me that I had no right to be at a Conservative Party rally on the grounds of the Vancouver Public Library. But the Left are the angels and the Right are the haters, eh?!

On May 15, 1911 Standard Oil was ordered to be broken up. Before May 15, 2018 will Google face a mandated great divide of its own?

Mark Steyn explains to Tucker Carlson how the vast majority of the mainstream media are not at all interested in the massive scandal that has erupted at the DNC.

Steyn elucidates further in his latest column:

What we have here, for the benefit of American reporters who may be unfamiliar with the concept, is an actual news story - an unusual event that's happened in recent times. It thus stands in contrast to, say, speculative fancies about whether or not money-no-object special counsel Robert Mueller is expanding his "Russia investigation" to set the many Hillary donors on his payroll into investigating Trump's sale of some property in Florida in 2008.

What connects the "fake news" and the real news is the DNC. The Russia "story" exists because the election wasn't hacked but the DNC was. Wikileaks released the Democrats' embarrassing emails to the world, although, helpfully, the US media mostly declined to report on them, and, in fact, CNN's Chris Cuomo lectured America that it's totally illegal for you mere citizens even to glance at these leaked emails. As it happens, the world's most inevitable presidential victor somehow managed to lose the election, and casting around for a reason the Dems decided that blaming it on a stiff tired unlikeable legacy candidate with no message and a minimal campaign schedule was too implausible. So instead they decided to blame it on Russian "hacking".

Update: Stefan Molyneux breaks down the scandal, detail by detail. h/t V. Uil

More here

PragerU has consistently offered short videos that provide information on a variety of topics. This video, captured on 2016-12-28, provides something very different. If you can set aside 90 minutes, you won't be disappointed.

This video provides a fascinating insight into the vacant minds of the Far Left. While the old adage "ignorance is bliss" may indeed be true, bliss can also be found if you're a 20-something and your mama is still doing your laundry.

Dan Henninger talks with host, John Batchelor (podcast)

Show Notes:
Shakespeare in the Park Trump "Unhingement." @DanHenninger @WSJOpinion

"...But that wasn't the end of it. We may assume that as Ms. Griffin was creating her video, the artists at New York's Public Theater were rehearsing their production of " Julius Caesar, " the one in which Central Park audiences watch Caesar as a blond-haired Donald Trump, who is pulled down from a podium by men in suits and assassinated with plunging knives.

The news site Axios runs stories regularly about journalists who have been suspended or fired because of their unhinged postings on Twitter . After Donald Trump used a tweet to revive his long-running feud with the mayor of London amid the June 3 killings, CNN personality Reza Aslan tweeted that Mr. Trump was a "piece of s--."

Some take comfort that these displays did not go unpunished. CNN wrist-slapped Ms. Griffin by dropping her as co-host of its New Year's Eve show with Anderson Cooper. Delta Air Lines , American Express and Bank of America withdrew their sponsorship of "Julius Caesar," though New York City's Democratic Comptroller Scott Stringer said their pullout "sends the wrong message."

Advertisers must wake up every morning wondering what political meteorite will hit them next. J.P. Morgan Chase pulled its ads this week from NBC News rather than be associated with Megyn Kelly's prime-time interview with Alex Jones to discuss "controversies and conspiracies," such as his notion that the Sandy Hook murders were a hoax. Ms. Kelly justified the interview in part on Twitter because Donald Trump appeared on Mr. Jones's show and "our job is 2 shine a light."

Donald Trump's election has caused psychological unhingement in much of the population. But the Trump phenomenon only accelerated forces that were plummeting in this direction before the 2016 election...."

Video interview with Henninger

NoSafeSpaces.com More here

As evidenced by the recent happenings at Evergreen College, "protesters at college campuses are quickly spiraling out of control. What's next, that large swaths of students have to wear yellow badges?

Yet, through it all, the Left assures us that there's nothing to see here, must move along. The attacks against Adam Carolla are starting to amp up to eleven.

It's deliberate;

Tricia Barry, executive director of Money School Canada and a former banker, says despite promises by the provincial education ministry in 2011 to "integrate" money management into the Grade 4-12 curriculum, students know little more about money than they did five years ago.

She was so upset with the Liberal's "broken promises" -- what she cheekily calls financial literacy gate -- she produced a discussion paper last November showing how little is being done.

Because it's essential to the success and survival of socialism.

Newly-confirmed Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke rode a horse to his new job in Washington, D.C., Thursday.

In this podcast, John Batchelor and Liz Peek examine the mental health of David Frum and other Leftists.

Update: Here's the CBC interview that cgh referenced:

$228 - Discount Airfare from Berkeley, CA to Washington, DC
$19 - Bed at an inexpensive hostel in DC
$17.99 - Hollywood Hypocrites paperback
< $16 - Lunch or dinner at the NuVegan Cafe

Watching Unhinged Leftists breakdown at President Trump's Inauguration: Priceless!

Just when you thought the MSM couldn't reach a new low, CNN's U-Boat captain Wolf Blitzer proved you wrong: CNN: Assassinating Trump Could Keep Obama Administration in Power

One wonders if this is going to end well.

Here's the action plan of #DisruptJ20. These are the foot soldiers of the Dems who don't believe in democracy, capitalism, deodorant, or basic personal grooming.

One can only speculate what Wendy Mesley thinks of her fellow Leftist, Matt Taibbi, deviating from "the script":

"The media and politicians had spent so much time with each other that they lost touch with regular people, and Trump capitalized on that. He made us in the media villains, representative of this out of touch, ivory tower political culture," he said.

"I think there's some fairness to it, as much as I dislike Donald Trump, he hit a note, several notes, in this campaign that were true, and that was one of them."

Hey Wendy, how come Hillary Clinton's mocking of tens of millions of "deplorables" (white blue-collar workers) didn't invalidate her in your eyes?!?

Catherine Little has published an interesting op-ed in the Toronto Star, urging teachers and parents to encourage children how to think critically. While one has no reason to disbelieve the sincerity of this writer, the notion that one of the most Left leaning newspapers in the country supports the idea of encouraging mostly Left leaning academics to teach critical thinking is like ... fill in your own joke. For years now we've seen countless news stories of the rampant group think in the media and in schools. Ms. Little should be applauded for trying but her message will clearly fall onto deaf ears and severely closed minds.

Piers Morgan took down Meryl Streep in a scathing editorial:

Last night, Streep received a Lifetime Achievement award at the Golden Globes, and chose the moment to launch a very personal attack on Donald Trump.
She began by saying that Hollywood, foreigners and the press are 'the most vilified segments of American society right now'.
At which point the cameras panned out to hundreds of the richest, most privileged people in American society sitting in the audience in their $10,000 tuxedos and $20,000 dresses, loudly cheering this acknowledgement of their dreadful victimhood.
She then said that if all the 'outsiders and foreigners' were kicked out of Hollywood, 'you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.'
Wow.
I haven't heard such elitist snobbery since Hillary Clinton branded Trump supporters 'a basket of deplorables'.

Search for "Russian hacking" and you'll see a multitude of talking heads yammering on about the "terrible" Russians. Yet what precisely is the proof? According to this new article in Wired magazine, there's nothing:

In terms of proving the core claim that Russia hacked American political targets, though, Friday's report is sure to leave any skeptic not privy to classified briefings briefings unconvinced: It fails to include even the already public evidence visible to the cybersecurity community over the last six months, which drew a thick dotted line from the DNC hack to the Kremlin. A hacker calling himself Guccifer 2.0, for instance, in June claimed to be a lone Romanian hacker responsible for the breach. But the stolen DNC files he published on the web--and also said he'd leaked to WikiLeaks--contained telltale Russian-language error messages. A piece of malware known as X-Agent was used in both the DNC hack and previous attacks long believed to be Russian intelligence operations. And an analysis of the URL shortening service used by the hacker who stole the Gmail password of Clinton staffer John Podesta shows that the same account was used to target more than 5,000 other Gmail accounts, including Russia-focused journalists and authors, and the spouses of American military officials.

Update: Well worth a watch:

h/t Alan

Southern California podcaster and pundit, Adam Carolla, has an ongoing meme about many politicians (and others) being either Stupid or Liars. With that in mind, how is it possible that post-Brexit, Britain has the strongest economy in the world? After all, for months we were told over & over & over & over again that the UK economy was going to be hurt or worse. The opposite happened. How is this possible?

Barack Obama's sycophants in the media have a way of constantly repeating the same lies over and over again until a large percentage of the public accepts them as truth. Market Watch's Caroline Baum wanted to set some things straight before he left office:

• It's (still) the economy, stupid


• A Legacy of Ashes


• Keep your friends close


• Divided we stand


• That which must not be named

Iowa journalist Robert Leonard has written a most fascinating op-ed in the New York Times. While devout Leftists, who have clearly drank too much of the mind numbing Kool-Aid, are incapable of learning from the immense wisdom of his piece, hopefully a few on that side of the aisle will be prompted to change their thinking ... even a little.

"Democrats believe that we are born good, that we create God, not that he created us. If we are our own God, as the Democrats say, then we need to look at something else to blame when things go wrong -- not us."

Mr. Watts talked about the 2015 movie theater shooting in Lafayette, La., in which two people were killed. Mr. Watts said that Republicans knew that the gunman was a bad man, doing a bad thing. Democrats, he added, "would look for other causes -- that the man was basically good, but that it was the guns, society or some other place where the blame lies and then they will want to control the guns, or something else -- not the man." Republicans, he said, don't need to look anywhere else for the blame.

Hearing Mr. Watts was an epiphany for me. For the first time I had a glimpse of where many of my conservative friends and neighbors were coming from. I thought, no wonder Republicans and Democrats can't agree on things like gun control, regulations or the value of social programs. We live in different philosophical worlds, with different foundational principles.

Here's a follow-up to Leonard's piece.

James Delingpole urges right thinking people to not rest on their laurels, comparing what happened in 2016 to merely the first few hours of the D-Day invasion. He argues that anyone who thinks the Leftist elite and their SJW stormtroopers are merely going to lie down and allow anything to be changed are in great denial.

As the great, now sadly-retired Thomas Sowell says, "Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it." Its malign influence is still with us today. Innocent boys being accused of rape on college campuses; genuine rapes committed by gangs of Muslim taxi drivers in northern England and by gangs of Muslim immigrants in German cities like Cologne; hundreds of thousands driven into fuel poverty, landscapes ravaged, avian fauna sliced and diced as a result of crazy renewable energy policies; a Nobel-prize-winning scientist driven out of his job because a feminist loser misreported something he said about women at a conference; generations of kids denied a rigorous, disciplined, useful education; the needless violence and tension engendered by #blacklivesmatter: we should never concede the moral high ground to the kind of people who make all this sort of stuff possible, no matter how many times they tell us how evil and selfish and uncaring we are.

A few days ago I was at a Target in suburban San Francisco, looking for a book for a nephew of mine. Suddenly my eyes discovered this book:

I fully agree that "some girls" are born to lead. Margaret Thatcher, Kate McMillian, Rona Ambrose, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali come to mind. As for the former U.S. President's wife, HRC, she doesn't really fit the bill. I wonder what a better subtitle might be for this book?!

Here's a fascinating discussion between social media titans Paul Joseph Watson and Stefan Molyneux:

Update: Here's the discussion with Scott Adams that some commenters found quite interesting.

If you'd like to start off your day with a good laugh, click on this link and then watch the video entitled "Preview This Course".

Rather's key quote was this: "... we need journalistic integrity now, more than ever." If you're too young to understand the significance of this man uttering these words, please read this and watch this.

Mark Geragos is a famous Southern California lawyer. He frequently describes himself as a "Man of the Left" and, as such, likely voted for Hillary Clinton. But he has been dismayed by the actions of his fellow Democrat voters in recent times.

Early 2016: Justin Trudeau sends $4.3 Billion overseas

Late 2016: The CBC wants Boxing Day shoppers to feel guilty about the homeless

Here's an interesting discussion between Jonathan Haidt and Tom Woods about how Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) got so out of control:

In case you're interested, here's the Ohio State University encounter the gentlemen reference. One wonders if this is the first time these spoiled brats have ever been told 'No'?!

Here's hoping that Mr. Haidt is correct about the "tide turning" but recent events suggest against it.

Related: Haidt's own encounter with a snowflake.

Many on the Left consider 2016 to have been a terrible year. Lawrence Solomon begs to differ.

2016 wrote the epitaph to political correctness, the most insidious of the evils facing society and also among the most toxic. To silence challengers to today's orthodoxy, self-styled "social justice warriors" on the left have been quick to label dissenters as racists, sexists, homophobes or Islamophobes, unaware that in previous generations the dissenters from the orthodoxies -- those who fought for emancipation of the slaves, women's suffrage, gay and other civil rights -- succeeded precisely because upholders of the orthodoxies were unable to silence dissent.

Political correctness is not benign, as many imagine. It hampers everything from fighting the war on terror, to acquiring energy independence, to alleviating poverty. Neither is political correctness popular with the general public -- opinion polls show two-thirds to three quarters of Americans, including millennials and students -- oppose it.

h/t Maz2

Related: Similar sentiments from Down Under.

"Breaking" News from Politico

Dan Henninger has written a fascinating new column in which he digs deeper into something Michelle Obama said recently. Simply put, the Left appears to believe that "what you say" is what matters whereas others believe that actual results are much more important.

Michelle Obama and other Democrats disconsolate since the election about the loss of hope in American politics leave the impression they believe that giving people the rhetoric of hope, lifting them with words, is more important than delivering results, which some might call change.

For example, when Mrs. Clinton promised free public-college tuition, Democrats seemed to think this sort of inchoate, grandiose promise would somehow strike voters as "offering hope," and that this impassioned commitment alone--to hope--should be enough to validate their politics. But it doesn't, not anymore.

Once past the voting, politics is about public policies, whose real-world effects either sustain or diminish hope. Hope is the helium-filled balloon of politics. Governing in office is the gravity that pulls it back to earth.

It's not clear whether one should laugh or cry:

Dear Mark,

Spot on. It reminds me of the old joke about the procedure for separating the sane from the insane, back when there were "mental asylums" and society tried to keep crazy people inside them instead of running the country.

The intake assessment involved giving each patient a mop and bucket, then locking them in a room and slowly flooding it with water.

As the water level rose, the insane went to work with the mop and bucket.

The sane located the valve and turned off the water.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Rick Darby

The WSJ's Bill McGurn has written a fascinating column that exposes the weird dichotomy of the Left's views towards despotism.

During the election, Donald Trump was routinely likened to Hitler. The headlines suggest not much has changed.

From the New Republic: "Donald Trump Is Already Acting Like an Authoritarian." National Public Radio: "Donald Trump: Strong Leader or Dangerous Authoritarian?" The New York Times: "Beyond Lying: Donald Trump's Authoritarian Reality." The New Yorker: "Trump's Challenge to American Democracy."

What's striking here is that the same folks who see in Mr. Trump a Mussolini in waiting are blind to the soft despotism that has already taken root in our government. This is the unelected and increasingly assertive class that populates our federal bureaucracies and substitutes rule by regulation for the rule of law. The result? Over the Obama years, the Competitive Enterprise Institute reckons, Washington has averaged 35 regulations for every law.

Besides mental illness, can anyone proffer a reasonable theory as to how they can be so blind to what has occurred over the past 8 years?

Leftists around America are no longer hiding a simple truth: They don't believe in democracy. How else to explain the massive efforts to block President-elect Trump via the Electoral College voters?

"I would like to think we would be successful, but if not, we need to do all we could to prevent this man from being president," he said. Then he modified a line from the movie: "Prepare your breakfast, and eat hearty, for tonight, we will go to battle. This isn't 300, but 538."

That "battle" has intensified as electors draw closer to their convening Monday. Joyce was getting 15 letters a day and 300 emails in the days after Nov. 8, but those numbers quickly increased to 50 and 3,000. Some of them have been form letters, others handwritten.

The letters came from Washington state and from China, stuffed with copies of the U.S. Constitution or Alexander Hamilton's writing in Federalist Paper No. 68, which states that the meeting of the electoral college "affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications."

An ex-pat living in Japan has created a very interesting video that examines the phenomenon of "EthnoMasochism" only existing in the West:

With absolutely no proof provided, Obama & co. have accused Vladimir Putin's government of helping Trump get elected. Putin is fed up with it.

Related: John Batchelor and Stephen F. Cohen discuss Obama's evidence-less charges.

Mark Steyn weighs in as well.

Britain's left-wing Guardian newspaper has posted a luvvy-duvvy "article" on Justin Trudeau. Any snippet from it would likely make most SDA regulars vomit so instead, here's an apropos comment:

Really, the Guardian's editorial board passed this nonsense with no one wondering about the doublespeak? Mr. Trudeau is the climate fighter passing pipelines? We help refugees by allowing a few of the masses in need? We create jobs for the future by investing in industries of the past? I think Mr. Trudeau is portraying himself as all things to all people; but, he is a neoliberal with a neoliberal agenda, and he doesn't like to be criticized. He's a good looking dude whose only difference from the previous PM is the hair; in Canada, we tend to be consistently governed by neoliberals which means really nothing ever changes. CETA was advocated by both conservative and liberal governments, the TPP was pushed, the fear of Mr. Trump and the destruction of NAFTA; it's not so much the harm to the little guy, it is the fact big corporations (the executives) want to be in charge and with the populism, they are no longer, The world is against globalization, Canada sticks out because we are still a nice people; no, we are an obedient one which isn't quite the same thing.

I know this is a little out of date but it's priceless. First, in case there are any Members of the Church of Leftology reading this, a clear understanding of "hypocrisy" is required:

Now that you understand that, enjoy this epic rant by Joe Scarborough:

Related: Prior to the election . . .

Who would have ever known that Baby it's Cold Outside would drive cowering SJWs into their safe spaces?!

If only we could figure out what song would keep them there ... and off of the Internet too!

Anthea Butler is a professor at the universities of Pennsylvania and Rochester. She recently wrote this op-ed:

The release of the professor watchlist, purporting to expose professors who discriminate against conservative students, is anything but that. I should know: I'm on it.

As one of a handful of religion professors in the US who study, write and teach about conservative Christianity and politics, I am all too aware of the real meaning of the list, and of its purpose. Promoted by Turning Point USA, the list is not simply designed to expose professors who discriminate; it is designed to silence and smear. And it helps feed information and screeds to similar sites like the College Fix and Campus Reform, which states that they are "a watchdog to the nation's higher education system" to "expose bias and abuse on the nations college campuses".

Sounds like she is being unfairly singled out, yes? But a simple Google search reveals some independent reviews from past students. But there's more. And more. And even more.

Imagine my surprise when I clicked on the link from the latest PragerU e-mail and saw this:

PragerU is renowned for creating G-rated educational videos but the SJW Nasty Elves have clearly been hard at work to suppress this video. Thankfully you can watch it here.

Update: The video appears to have been restored in its original location, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCQEmeGfFmY

And likely bought & paid for.

A regular SDA reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, has drawn my attention to a new Owner Builder Exam in British Columbia.

"There's some really troubling building legislation that was brought into effect this past summer in BC, whereby a person wanting to build on their own property must pass an exam before proceeding. It's such an incredible overreach on the part of the government overlords that more people should know about it. My son began building when the permit only required a fee and filling out a form, but since the exam is now required, until he has a good chunk of time to study building codes and WCB law, he can't possibly pull off the 70 percent required to pass. Furthermore, his friend who helped with the framing, has been a contractor for 40 years, is not allowed to build another home until he is HPO certified. The process for him requires an investment of $20,000 to become certified (the owner builder application is $400). Since he will be retiring soon, he does not feel an HPO certification is a good investment for him. Out of the 48 established contractors in our town, only 16 have been able to certify under the new legislation. The others are now only permitted to do renovations and if they are caught doing new builds, the penalty is $30,000. It's so crazy!"

Tony Heller (aka Steven Goddard) is a down-to-earth engineer who loves examining data to find the truth. Grab a coffee and listen to this fascinating discussion with James Delingpole.

Something any regular SDA reader has learned over the years is that the MSM appears to move in lockstep together, especially when it comes to portraying non-Leftists in the most despicable light. So appears to be the case with how the Western media outlets have portrayed Vladimir Putin and Russia. Professor Stephen F. Cohen outlines five false narratives about Putin and Russia.

Here's a podcast discussing the same.

From 2011 but even more prescient now:

I've returned to my hometown of Vancouver for a few days and am shocked and bewildered by what I'm seeing. There are marijuana shops all over the city now, many spouting the drug as some sort of miracle medical potion. Many storefronts along Granville Mall are boarded up. Then this report appeared on CBC's The National last night:

For years the "brilliant minds" at Insite promised us that their way would solve the drug problem in the city. They sought to destroy anyone who suggested that abstinence based treatment programs were the answer.

One can only wonder what the average citizen of Vancouver thinks of all of this.

Thanks to a tip from C_Miner, here is 30 minutes of pure delight, watching the smug, arrogant Young Turks coverage of the 2016 Presidential Campaign. Then fun starts about 3 minutes in but do watch it from the beginning and see the smiles wiped off of the face of Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, and their minions. Also pay attention to Uygur's anger & swearing go from 1 to 11 in mere minutes. It's a beautiful thing!

Imagine being in a relationship with one of these conceited, pompous, self-righteous, egotistical snobs. How could you EVER have a reasonable discussion?!

Around 17 minutes in, Uygur threatens to tour the Red States and teach people there how to think. Just envision how that's going to work.

A Columbia University Humanities Professor, Mark Lilla, has written a very interesting column called The End of Identity Liberalism. Ignore the obvious shots at Trump & Republicans, remembering what audience he is primarily trying to reach. To Leftists, who have been deeply indoctrinated in the propaganda of Identity Politics for many decades now - younger ones know nothing else - Lilla makes a compelling argument about why this must come to an abrupt halt if the Democrats have any hope of rising from the ashes.

One of the many lessons of the recent presidential election campaign and its repugnant outcome is that the age of identity liberalism must be brought to an end. Hillary Clinton was at her best and most uplifting when she spoke about American interests in world affairs and how they relate to our understanding of democracy. But when it came to life at home, she tended on the campaign trail to lose that large vision and slip into the rhetoric of diversity, calling out explicitly to African-American, Latino, L.G.B.T. and women voters at every stop. This was a strategic mistake. If you are going to mention groups in America, you had better mention all of them. If you don't, those left out will notice and feel excluded. Which, as the data show, was exactly what happened with the white working class and those with strong religious convictions. Fully two-thirds of white voters without college degrees voted for Donald Trump, as did over 80 percent of white evangelicals.

Pop Quiz: During the recent U.S. Presidential Election Campaign, which media outlets chose to regurgitate falsehoods rather than strive to adhere to some reasonable semblance of the truth? If you're a regular reader of SDA then you very well know who would be at the top of that list.

This is beyond frightening if it comes to pass:

(Language Warning)

The list of "fake news websites" comes from one Melissa Zimdars, a devout Leftist SJW.

Anyone who thought the members of the media would have learned how incredibly wrong they were about the recent presidential election ... must have been drunk. The latest proof of #TEDS (Trump Extreme Derangement Syndrome) comes from hyper-leftie, David Remnick:

The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism. Trump's shocking victory, his ascension to the Presidency, is a sickening event in the history of the United States and liberal democracy. On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American President--a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit--and witness the inauguration of a con who did little to spurn endorsement by forces of xenophobia and white supremacy. It is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety.

A discussion of Remnick's mental health can be heard here.

Any hope that Leftists would regain their sanity and be willing to discuss issues in a reasonable manner have quickly evaporated. The latest evidence comes from Noam Chomsky in a recent interview with EcoWatch:

On Nov. 8, the most powerful country in world history, which will set its stamp on what comes next, had an election. The outcome placed total control of the government--executive, Congress, the Supreme Court--in the hands of the Republican Party, which has become the most dangerous organization in world history.

The sad thing is, sheeple the world over will buy this hyperbole without question, further dividing the Left & Right. Stop for a moment to consider what Chomsky is actually saying. He is stating, unequivocally, that the Republican Party of the United States of America is more dangerous than: Hitler's Nazis. Lenin's Communists, Mao's Communists, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, ISIS, Al Qaeda, and a host of other truly despicable totalitarian regimes. Yet Chomsky is considered to be a brilliant thinker among disciples of Leftism. So much so that the SJWs who control Wikipedia won't even allow a criticism section in his profile.

Earplugs strongly advised. You were warned!

#TEDS = Trump Extreme Derangement Syndrome

In his usual understated way, the Hoover Institution's Victor Davis Hanson explains why Donald Trump won the presidential election:

... the more Clinton Inc. talked about the Latino vote, the black vote, the gay vote, the woman vote, the more Americans tired of the same old identity politics pandering. What if minority bloc voters who had turned out for Obama might not be as sympathetic to a middle-aged, multimillionaire white woman? And what if the working white classes might flock to the politically incorrect populist Trump in a way that they would not to a leftist elitist like Hillary Clinton? In other words, the more Clinton played the identity politics card, the more she earned fewer returns for herself and more voters for Trump.

The old blue-collar middle class was bewildered by the leftwing social agenda in which gay marriage, women in combat units, and transgendered restrooms went from possible to mandatory party positions in an eye blink. In a party in which "white privilege" was pro forma disparagement, those who were both white and without it grew furious that the elites with such privilege massaged the allegation to provide cover for their own entitlement.

The big question is, will ANYONE on the Left or in the Elitist Right Hierarchy pay any attention to what the American people are telling them?

h/t Gord Tulk

Hillary Clinton didn't mind bribes donations from Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, but Donald Trump wasn't having any of it.

This video, published on November 10th, already has 2.6 Million views:

h/t I.M. Rite

Language Warning

An election just occurred in the United States of America. One side won and one side lost. Yet, the side that lost can't handle this fact and is now melting down:

•  The University of Michigan offered its traumatized students coloring books and Play-Doh to calm them. (Are its students in college or kindergarten?)


•  The University of Kansas reminded its stressed-out kids that therapy dogs, a regular campus feature, were available.


•  Cornell University, an Ivy League school, held a campus-wide "cry-in," with officials handing out tissues and hot chocolate.


•  Tufts University offered its devastated students arts and crafts sessions. (OK, not kindergarten -- more like summer camp.)


•  At campuses from elite Yale to Connecticut to Iowa and beyond, professors canceled classes and/or exams -- either because students asked or because instructors were too distraught to teach.

More here Videos here and here (language warning)

1941 - 1945 : How the SF Bay Area was reshaped by WW2

Government records show that 1,647,174 passengers - soldiers, sailors, Marines and civilians like Red Cross personnel - boarded ships at Fort Mason bound for the Pacific. Two-thirds of all the troops sent to the Pacific in World War II passed through San Francisco.

November 2016 : Post-Election Group Hug in Dolores Park [San Francisco]

"This election is one of the most difficult elections we've ever faced, and we're all in a lot of pain. Come meet at Dolores park for hugs and community support, including at least one giant group hug, to spread the love and remind each other that we are here for one another as one family.

Look for folks carrying a sign that says "Group Hug"

This is an open invitation, so invite everyone you can! Let's get the biggest group hug you can imagine!"

Paul Joseph Watson has a few thoughts about the ongoing protests:

"You're literally protesting against free democratic elections!"

Language Warning

Political Correctness has been on the rise for some time but seems to have been supercharged during Obama's reign. This column explains how the overreach of PC Warriors hurt HRC and helped Trump:

The segment of the electorate who flocked to Trump because he positioned himself as "an icon of irreverent resistance to political correctness" think it means this: smug, entitled, elitist, privileged leftists jumping down the throats of ordinary folks who aren't up-to-date on the latest requirements of progressive society.

Example: A lot of people think there are only two genders--boy and girl. Maybe they're wrong. Maybe they should change that view. Maybe it's insensitive to the trans community. Maybe it even flies in the face of modern social psychology. But people think it. Political correctness is the social force that holds them in contempt for that, or punishes them outright.

If you're a leftist reading this, you probably think that's stupid. You probably can't understand why someone would get so bent out of shape about being told their words are hurtful. You probably think it's not a big deal and these people need to get over themselves. Who's the delicate snowflake now, huh? you're probably thinking. I'm telling you: your failure to acknowledge this miscalculation and adjust your approach has delivered the country to Trump.

h/t John Galt

Related: Prof. Jordan Peterson at U of T - Summary of Videos

Late Update: Looks like Clinton has come to her senses and called Trump to concede.

H-I-L-L-A-R-Y C-L-I-N-T-O-N ! ! !

In the early morning hours, after the great electoral upset of 2016, is the time at SDA when we juxtapose:

In a stunning new column, Victor Davis Hanson indicts Hillary & Bill Clinton and the entire American political system:

The Clintons suffer from greed, as defined by Aristotle: endless acquisition solely for the benefit of self. With their insatiable appetites, they resented the limits that multimillionaire status put on them, boundaries they could bypass only by accumulating ever greater riches. The billion-dollar foundation squared the circle of progressive politicians profiting from the public purse by offering a veneer of "doing good" while offering free luxury travel commensurate with the style of the global rich, by offering sinecures for their loyal but otherwise unemployable cronies, and by spinning off lobbying and speaking fees (the original font of their $100-million-plus personal fortune and the likely reason for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's decision to put all her communications, mercantile included, on a private server safe from government scrutiny). Acquiring money to the extent that money would become superfluous was certainly a Clinton telos -- and the subtext of the entire Podesta trove and the disclosures about the Clinton Foundation.

In this podcast, John Batchelor and Mary Kissel discuss Hanson's column with him.

Yesterday Peter Thiel spoke to the National Press Club in Washington, DC:

Language Warning

Here is the presenter's book.

In case you're still in denial that this is going on, read this: Google/YouTube vs. Conservative Speech

Here's one of the videos that Leftist SJWs targeted and got placed on the restricted list.

DNC Chairwoman, Donna Brazile, embarrassed herself and her party recently when asked a few straightforward questions by Megyn Kelly:

If you don't understand the significance of this, then tune into this recent podcast of Adam Carolla, beginning at 29:10.

Ranger: I think it's wrong that you make a profit on public lands

Me: So you work for free?

Ranger: Huh?

Me: If you think it's wrong to make money on public lands, I assume you must volunteer, else you too would be making money on public lands

Ranger: No, of course I get paid.

Me: Well, I know what I make for profit in your District, and I have a good guess what your salary probably is, and I can assure you that you make at least twice as much as me on these public lands.

Ranger: But that is totally different.

As any 6 year-old with simple math skills would have predicted, the basic economics behind Obamacare were not sound and thus the main policy initiative of America's Modern Messiah was doomed to failure. Richard Epstein, of the Hoover Institution, gives the details in this podcast.

Many more facts about this ill conceived program can be found here:

And what the insurers who have left the program have made clear is that they believe that, absent changes, the losses will go on forever. "The vast majority of payers have experienced continued financial stress within their individual public exchange business," Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said about the decision. In a call with investors last year, a representative from UnitedHealth said the company "saw no indication of anything actually improving" inside the exchanges. "We cannot sustain these losses," UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley said on that call. "We can't really subsidize a marketplace that doesn't appear at the moment to be sustaining itself."

As with all Leftist failures, expect no apologies or mea culpas. They're incapable of it. With an endless stream of supporters whose memories are shorter than that of a gnat, they will just move on, setting their eyes on the next part of the economy to destroy.

Strange things are happening in the UK. Someone within London's Metropolitan Police is harassing Twitter users they disagree with, naming family members in the process. A complaint has been lodged but so far no one has been disciplined.

Yesterday a Democrat friend posted on Facebook about "how obvious" it was that liberal (ie. Democrat) run states were much more prosperous than conservative ones. I was curious about this statement so decided to check the facts. Using this link and this one, I compiled a table of the 10 most and 10 least economically competitive states:

Incidentally, I passed on this information to my friend but have not heard a peep back from him about it. Imagine if a major news outlet had published a similar headline. How many people would bother to investigate? Yet after seeing multiple MSM outlets repeat the same things over & over again, it's easy to see how people's opinions get quickly shaped.

Update: Tim made an excellent comment which deserves follow-up. To further the discussion, here is the NY Times article he referred to, along with this rebuttal to it.

About 51:20 into this podcast, Adam Carolla interviews Ben Shapiro on the most topical events of American news and politics. Well worth listening to!

It's quite fascinating to watch the media fawn all over our frequently shirtless Prime Minister. Quite a contrast from the mocking that Vladimir Putin has received for doing precisely the same thing. It would be interesting to do a study into how many Canadian "journalists" originally wanted to pursue a career in the public relations department of the Liberal Party of Canada.

A young woman named Rohini Sethi attends the University of Houston. She had the "audacity" to perform a "hate crime". How? By posting this on Facebook: "Forget #BlackLivesMatter; more like #AllLivesMatter".

Now a pasty white weakling named Shane A. Smith is trying to force her through a process so humiliating that it likely has George Orwell and Franz Kafka spinning in their graves. Look for Smith to be a future Democrat politician.

So far there are relatively few news stories about it because it simply does not match the narrative of the Leftist MSM.

The next time an American brags about their Right to Free Speech, refer them to this story.

I have a dear friend in Chicago. She's a wonderful person. She is also a hard-core Democrat. The few times we've actually delved deep into politics, I realized that she - an upper middle class woman living on Chicago's north side - was a huge proponent of government "programs". It didn't matter what they were. It didn't matter whether they were effective. She just felt better about politicians who advocated more programs.

Translate this to a Canadian context and it's very easy to see why the Liberals & NDP have such appeal. The next time you get a chance to talk with a Leftie, ask them this question: "If there's a longstanding government welfare program that has proven to not help people get out of poverty, would you be in favour of cutting it?" The responses I've received involve a whole lot of squirming and mental gymnastics!

National Review writer Mark Krikorian was in Nice with his family when the mass slaughter happened. Please read every word he wrote.

One can only wonder whether Air Force One is making preparations to fly to France and Obama and his speechwriters are already preparing a speech in which:

1. The first half will mourn the loss of all the innocent lives taken in a matter of minutes.


2. Then a pivot will occur and he'll spend the rest of his time condemning the French populous for causing this massacre.

Related: This is the Amanpour/Hannan interview that he referenced.

If you wander into a room and the chairs are in a circle. STAY ALERT! If you see a millennial that appears welcoming, be especially cautious!

You may have inadvertently interrupted a federal electoral reform dialogue.

DO NOT PANIC. Remember, it's only chairs. NO ONE IS ACTUALLY THERE!

A few days ago I had dinner with some German ex-pats in Silicon Valley. The topic of Brexit arose and one woman was adamant that this vote wasn't right. A fellow chimed in that there's now a petition to have another vote to overturn the first one.

Elections have consequences. So do referendums. It seems that whenever Left-of-Centre folks (Democrats, Liberals, 'Remain' supporters) don't get their way then they immediately throw out multiple disparagement cards about those who voted differently than them: Racists, Sexists, Idiots, Ignoramuses, etc. One wonders if they have any sense of self-awareness to realize how similar they sound to spoiled children.

Rex Murphy recently shared his thoughts on the subject:

Professor Stephen F. Cohen recently had an interesting conversation (podcast) with John Batchelor about Russia's role in European, Syrian, and NATO politics. Here's a sampling of Cohen's writings.

Even George Orwell could have never dreamed things would get this bad on U.S. campuses:

A member of the Bias Response Team met with the professor, the report says, and "advised him not to revisit transgender issues in his classroom if possible to avoid the students expressed concerns." The Bias Response Team also "told him to avoid stating opinions (his or theirs) on the topic as he had previously when working from the Atlantic article."

In a separate incident, a professor, whose name was also redacted, asked his students to choose from a list of debate topics, some of them regarding homosexuality and religion.

The Bias Response Team's notes summarized: "Specifically there were two topics of debate that triggered them and personally felt like an attack on their identity (GodHatesFags.com: is this harmful? Is this acceptable? Is this Christianity? And Gay Marriage: should it be legal? Is homosexuality immoral as Christians suggest?)"

The student, whose name is redacted and who is referred to as "they" in the report, complained that "other students are required to watch the in-class debate and hear both arguments presented."

The next time you hear someone, female or male, tell you they are a "feminist", insist that they watch this video by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Assuming their head doesn't explode from cognitive dissonance, encourage them to post it on Facebook or Twitter with a comment of how much they like it. You will witness more squirming than even the Guinness Book of World Records thought possible!

After an entire day of reading constant whinging by Leftists in Europe, America, and Canada, this was so refreshing to watch:

As an added bonus, here is a podcast featuring James Delingpole and Toby Young mere hours after the victory.

Now remember, drawing any conclusions about the ethnicity of this driver would be wrong, wrong, wong:

Canadians are many things but free traders we are not.

Commenter Harry Martin summed it up succinctly: "Fleecing Canadian consumers is the Canadian way."

A week ago SDA regulars submitted some hilarious captions about a Bernie Sanders supporter dressed up as the Statue of Liberty. Now this past weekend I saw something that left me cracking up. While I'm generally terrible at writing humorous captions, even I have some ideas for this pair of photos. Let's hear your best ideas!

The sad part is that most Leftists the world over wouldn't understand why he is so upset.

Some victims are more equal than others.

A Quebec aboriginal man who repeatedly burned a five-year-old girl with a cigarette, leaving permanent scars on her face, arms, legs and genitalia, has been given a lenient sentence after a judge determined he is a "collateral victim" of residential school abuse.

Alain Bellemare, an Atikamekw from Wemotaci, Que., about 270 kilometres north of Montreal, was convicted of aggravated assault last June, and Crown prosecutor Éric Thériault sought a four-year prison term on the grounds that serious crimes against children have to be forcefully denounced. He noted that the 2011 assaults caused 27 third-degree burns -- 25 from a cigarette and two from a lighter. The victim, who cannot be identified, was left to suffer without medical treatment.

But in sentencing Bellemare to 15 months on April 1, Quebec Court Judge Guy Lambert said the lingering effect of residential schools had to be taken into account under federal sentencing guidelines.

Two tier penalties create two tier justice. As aboriginal crime is most often perpetrated against other aboriginals, the net effect is lighter sentences for crimes against aboriginals. Good work, Gladue.

Adam Carolla has some advice for American voters:

Too bad many Canadians don't realize that elections have consequences: Trudeau Drops Campaign Promises and Goes All In With Deficits

Supporters of Bernie Sanders now have a place to find love: BernieSingles.com

What might some of the top pick-up lines of members of this site be?

Two keen observers of the American political scene have a serious discussion about the Republicans and the Democrats in 2016:

Listen to the full thing. Do you agree or disagree?

Here's Mona Charen's article that is cited in the discussion.

If you've never seen it, this is one of the most embarrassing moments in modern American political history.

In the run-up to the South Carolina Democrat primary, turns out that not everyone is in the Hillary BFF Club.

"Fun & Games" continue unabated in Vancouver's real estate market, as illustrated here and here and here. This comment from one of the articles accurately describes the situation:

The offshore elite have nothing to worry about in these trivial rezoning nuisances for their projects. They are fully aware and cognizant of the fact that Canadians have an international reputation of being the most gullible and easily manipulated naive clowns in the world. They would sell their children's future, environment and literally the land from under their feet for some measly laundered loose change. Simply greasing the appropriate palm, like they do back home, is all that is needed.

Last year Premier Christy Clark gave a firm 'No' to an offshore investors tax. But the pressure is mounting for her to change her mind.

If you ever wanted a closeup look at the corruption that is the public sector mindset, look no further than New York City Council:

Maybe this is how the sausage must be made, but to insist that raises-for-reform is principled progressivism -- that their stuff doesn't stink, that their bribes don't corrupt -- is a big part of why, when people think of the Council at all, they think "bums-at-best, crooks-at-worst."

The author of the column, Harry Siegel, discusses this corruption with John Batchelor here.

As Americans now begin the formal nomination process for their presidential candidates, let's not forget this gem from last summer:

The following is the first installment of actual events that have occurred in the life of one Canadian living in San Francisco in 2016. Each will hopefully give SDA readers greater insight into the American leftist mindset.

One Saturday evening I was invited to a dinner party in an upper middle class part of San Francisco's Richmond district. I didn't realize until later that it was mostly a recruiting initiative for a certain Buddhist sect that is referred to by some as a cult but that's for an entirely different story. Ten people were at the dinner, hosted by a truly lovely couple. One 20-something fellow, who we'll call Anson, had just relocated from Chicago a week before. The following accurately depicts my conversation with him:

Anson: So me and my mom are intellectuals but we also like to do silly things and gambling is one of them.
- One hour later -
Anson: I don't like to talk politics around people but I must tell you that I'm a big Bernie [Sanders] supporter and am even going to volunteer for him.
Me: So you don't like Hillary?
Anson: Well, obviously I like her more than ANY of the Republicans but Bernie is my man.
Me: So I'm just guessing that you weren't very good at math in school?
Anson (with a stunned look): Uhhhhh, what do you mean?
Me: Well, given all of Bernie's trillion dollar plans, WHO is going to pay for it all?
- Long Pause -
Anson: Like I said, I don't want to talk politics around others.
Me: Though you had no problem starting on the subject of politics and now you're advocating your support for a socialist. Are you aware that similar socialist ideas almost bankrupted my country in the 1970's?
Anson: I don't want to talk politics.

He didn't speak to me again.

In his latest podcast, James Delingpole talks with Milo Yiannopoulos about Donald Trump and the American Presidential election campaign. The latter has a very interesting perspective about why Trump is so popular with average Americans, especially why many this time around don't care that he's not a real conservative. More here.

The strongest counterpoint to a Trump presidential bid comes from National Review.

Should Trump face Bill Clinton's wife, it'll be most interesting to see whether his supporters have been talking to themselves in an echo chamber. Should Trump face Sanders, 2016 will likely be one of the craziest years in modern American history.

After a decade of uncool Stephen Harper, the NY Times has decided that Canada is "Suddenly ... Hip". An American colleague brought this article to my attention, thinking that I'd be gushing with joy that "once again" I come from a cool country. She was rather shocked, and dare I say disappointed, to hear that I wasn't a fan boy of Justine 'Shiny Pony' Trudeau.

I went on a mini-rant, stating my belief that Trudeau is merely a puppet figure, with the real levers of power back in the crafty hands of the Laurentian Elite. When she heard this, she immediately said, "Oh you mean like during the George W. Bush years?" To this I responded, "More like the Obama years." This didn't sit well with her. She pursed her lips, turned around, and walked away.

I got to thinking how incredibly effective the predominately left-wing media is at spin and shaping opinions. My colleague is no dummy but undoubtedly most of her life she has predominately (only?) heard leftist opinions on all things political. To believe that Barack Obama is a magnanimous free-thinker who considers all of the facts at hand and makes the best decisions for America is preposterous at best and more likely akin to idiotic. But such is the mindset for at least 35% of Americans.

The new year is young. Are things going to get worse than this?

Oddly enough.

Related: Trump, Muslim Immigration, and Terrorism:

Muslim failure to control or even criticize Muslim terrorism and to report potential terrorists in their midst justifies taking some action against the entire Muslim community in the U.S. and the rest of the world. As the terrorist actions that have taken place to date confirm, barring Muslim travel to the U.S., with some exceptions, is the least of the actions the U.S. should take. Had we done so under the previous Democratic president, Bill Clinton, we would have avoided thousands of American deaths cause by foreign Muslim terrorists.

I can't deny, this is delightful to watch.

Saying that the terrorists who murdered Parisians, calling them pagans and prostitutes, chose to do that and were not forced to do so by the West is disloyal? It is almost incomprehensible. Almost because, after all, Corbyn and his team are drawn from the ultra-Left of politics. They have little interest in domestic politics - an arena in which it is their aim to seek, find and nurture grievances. Not for them the power of government - that involves too much compromise. Protest and opposition are preferred and defeat embraced because victory is the ultimate betrayal. Foreign policy is the arena of choice. A binary world in which the West are wrong and their opponents right. One in which America is the enemy. Understand that and support for the IRA, Putin, jihadism, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran falls into place. And loyalty is easily defined - thinking the opposite about foreign policy to the average voter. No wonder Pat McFadden was sacked for opposing terrorism, no wonder Labour are in the wilderness under Corbyn.

That "right to free expression" thing the welfare art community is always going on about?

Not really a thing.

From Works of Adrian Stimson, better known for denouncing those who defame #Islam. https://t.co/xVWORgaFDi pic.twitter.com/gGzVQeS1D2

— Katewerk (@katewerk) December 17, 2015

Five years ago Adam Carolla wrote a book entitled, "In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks". While he was spot on with his predictions, he openly admits nowadays that his timeline was about 45 years late.

Case in point is the 2016 Pirelli calendar. For the first time in its 50 year history, the calendar is going PC. Instead of erotic photos of exquisitely beautiful women, they're offering something rather different this time round.

Stemming from the same notion that little boys would play with dolls and little girls would play with trains "if they weren't socially conditioned otherwise", the feminist assertion that heterosexual men will be equally interested to see photos of Fran Lebowitz and Yoko Ono as they would Kate Upton and Lily Aldridge is beyond preposterous. While all thoughtful men applaud the achievements of successful women, why would they shell out money to see photos of these women? After an initial flurry of purchases by feminists trying to prop up sales figures to support their world view, expect this experiment to be an abject failure.

Related: Dennis Prager has some thoughts on the subject of male vs. female sexuality, which has garnered nearly 3 million views:

D-list celebrity, Anna Lore, tried to mock Prager's views, in a video that currently has less than 6,000 views. This from the grand intellectual whose "brilliant" tweets include: "IM ON MY PERIOD AND CRYING BC I MADE GNOCCHI AND THEYRE SO FUCKING CUTE I LOVE THEM", "i'm not gonna say 'sad' but i will say 'listening to joni mitchell scrolling through a pinterest page of haircuts', and "I threw a spider in the trash the other day and I feel bad about it."

In a recent article, Marvin Folkertsma carefully examines the many things that Radical "Progressives" and Radical Muslims have in common:

• Both hate Christianity and Judaism


• Both excuse the preaching of hatred towards disfavored ethnic groups


• Both excuse violent attacks by Muslim terrorists, citing "Islamophobia"


• Neither believe in free speech


• Neither are capable of even the tiniest criticism, citing micro-aggressions or Islamophobia


• Both hold America and Israel in contempt


• Both favour rule by an unaccountable elite


• Both have dreams of totalitarian rule with leaders selected by political or religious criteria


• Both shun modernity, such as that provided by the energy from fossil fuels


• Both lie habitually, believing such deception is completely justified


• Both are determined to end, or severely curtail, our constitutional democracies that all stem from Judeo-Christian roots

Philadelphia lawyer & writer, Christine Flowers, has just penned an hilarious column about the recent idiocy on university campuses in North America:

The day that yoga becomes culturally offensive is the day that Mr. Rogers becomes a metrosexual icon. In other words, anyone who has a problem with Westerners (or rather, 21st century colonialists) teaching yoga classes to disabled students -- for free! -- is a real pain in the Ashtanga.

This is up there with women on campus carrying around mattresses because they want the world to take their complaints about sexual abuse seriously (right, toting a Serta through the cafeteria line is exactly the way to avoid ridicule). This is up there with complaining about red Starbucks cups at Christmas. This is up there with Ivy League students being told what Halloween costumes they can wear so as not to offend indigenous zombies. This is right up there with a white guy going on a hunger strike until the University of Kansas instituted "mandatory, intense" racial re-education workshops for students (bro, look in the mirror). And yes, this is up there with allowing a same-sex couple to throw a legally-compensated hissy fit because one particular baker out of the hundreds of thousands of millions in the world would not serve up a wedding cake.

In the same vein, you'll likely enjoy yesterday's podcast from Adam Carolla & Dr. Drew Pinsky.

Hollywood specifically, and the Left generally, have a long & disgraceful history of attempting to rewrite history. Only "Progressives" could so boldy use the word "Truth" to name their new film, which provides a fictional account of the Rathergate scandal in late 2004. For those not familiar with this most embarrassing episode in the history of the mainstream media, Dan Rather and his team at CBS News, put forward a story that was intended to destroy George W. Bush's chances of reelection. However, a group of bloggers and their readers quickly realized that the "Killian documents", at the heart of the story, were fake. This eventually lead to Rather resigning in disgrace, along with some key CBS executives.

In a recent podcast of "Need to Know", Powerlineblog.com cofounder, Scott Johnson, carefully dissects the lies in the film "Truth". More about the film can be learned here, here, and here. CBS refuses to accept advertisements for the film. This quote from a CBS spokesman explains why:

"It's astounding how little truth there is in 'Truth,'" he said. "There are, in fact, too many distortions, evasions and baseless conspiracy theories to enumerate them all. The film tries to turn gross errors of journalism and judgment into acts of heroism and martyrdom. That's a disservice not just to the public but to journalists across the world who go out every day and do everything within their power, sometimes at great risk to themselves, to get the story right."

When future historians examine just how far American academia has fallen, they may very well cite these two columns as primafacie records of evidence:

• George Will: America's higher education brought low


• Bret Stephens: Radical Parents, Despotic Children

Here's one snippet from each:

The University of Tennessee's Office for Diversity and Inclusion, worried that students might be uncomfortable with gender-specific pronouns ("he," "she," "him," "her"), suggests gender-neutral noises ("ze," "hir," "xe," "xem," "xyr"). The University of California system's sensitivity auditors stipulated that "hostile" and "derogatory" thoughts include "I believe the most qualified person should get the job" and "America is the land of opportunity." The University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point's list of racial microaggressions includes "America is a melting pot" and "There is only one race, the human race."

For almost 50 years universities have adopted racialist policies in the name of equality, repressive speech codes in the name of tolerance, ideological orthodoxy in the name of intellectual freedom. Sooner or later, Orwellian methods will lead to Orwellian outcomes. Those coddled, bullying undergrads shouting their demands for safer spaces, easier classes, and additional racial set-asides are exactly what the campus faculty and administrators deserve.

There's a longstanding adage that one should never discuss religion or politics at work or a family gathering. But such wisdom (actually, ALL wisdom) has never quite sunk into the heads of Devout Leftists. Proof positive is how the Obama Administration and Democrat Party are encouraging their devout cult members sycophants supporters to disrupt all enjoyment by talking politics with their non-brainwashed family members.

The DNC has even created a website entitled Your Republican Uncle. This site is full of mindless talking points that are so pathetically weak. Furthermore, they don't even trust their own supporters enough to regurgitate such words on their own that they've automated the process of spewing them out on Twitter. Totalitarian leaders, past & present, would be envious of how well the leaders of the American Left have automated the process of controlling their mindless drones.

In this editorial, Rex Murphy shares some common sense views that surely the majority of Canadians must share, namely that it is nonsensical to rush forward with the importation of 25,000 immigrants when it's almost certain that normal security screening would have to be waived to accomplish that. Justin Trudeau and his Liberals have a majority government in Canada so they can do pretty much whatever they want. But is his ego so fragile and more important than taking some reasonable steps to protect Canadians? Sadly, apparently so.

Considering what has been going on the past 7 years, the following juxtaposition is striking:

The Type of President that Americans Want
From the 1997 action thriller, Air Force One, here's a speech from 'President James Marshall':

The President that Americans are Stuck With
Barack "Lead From Behind" Obama

In a lively discussion, Adam Carolla and Drew Pinsky dissect all that has gone wrong on U.S. campuses. Directly related, here's an interview with Allan Dershowitz on the same disturbing issue.

Here's a POV video from Mark Schierbecker, the videographer who Melissa Click got in the face of. Listen carefully how Leftists persecuted a young man with autism. Undoubtedly they patted themselves on the back after working hard to destroy yet another life.

Climate Change profiteers zealots aren't going to let the slaughter of hundreds of Parisians get in their way. Case in point is Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change:

Of course #COP21 proceeds as planned. Even more so now. #COP21 = respecting our differences & same time acting together collaboratively.

— Christiana Figueres (@CFigueres) November 15, 2015

As Mark Steyn recently said:

When the Allahu Akbar boys opened fire, Paris was talking about the climate-change conference due to start later this month, when the world's leaders will fly in to "solve" a "problem" that doesn't exist rather than to address the one that does. But don't worry: we already have a hashtag (#PrayForParis) and doubtless there'll be another candlelight vigil of weepy tilty-headed wankers. Because as long as we all advertise how sad and sorrowful we are, who needs to do anything?

Now is an opportune time for world leaders of Western powers, plus Russia, to get together and collectively wipe out this scourge known as ISIS. Think it'll happen while Jeremiah Wright's disciple is running America and the Shiny Pony has a majority government in Kumbaya Canuckistan?!

Thought experiment: Do you think the same Leftists who nowadays fly off the handle at the slightest "microaggression" won't buy in wholeheartedly to the notion that "Climate Change is Directly Related to the Growth of Terrorism"?

Trigger Warning: If your birth certificate suggests you're an adult but you actually prefer living in a bubble wrap type existence, constantly on the lookout for micro-aggressions which might cause you to wimper like an infant at the slightest discomfort, then best that you stop reading this now and have your third Purell cleanse of the day.

Everyone else will likely find it highly informative to listen to this podcast from Friday evening's John Batchelor Show, in the wake of the multi-pronged attack on Paris. The 40-minute episode starts out with host, John Batchelor, interviewing Bill Roggio, Thomas Joscelyn, and Sebastian Gorka. A more informative analysis of what's going on in the world you will not find anywhere. Hour #2 can be heard here.

Mona Charen has written a stellar piece entitled "Snowflakes or Fascists":

In light of recent episodes of mob action on American campuses, the quote needs updating: When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in "diversity" and demanding "safe spaces."

...though it is couched in the language of safety, what these little snowflakes want is repression. Brenda Smith-Lezama, for example, is vice president of the Missouri Students Association. Asked about efforts on the Missouri campus to "muscle" student journalists away from a public event, she offered a view that would make Castro proud: "I personally am tired of hearing that First Amendment rights protect students when they are creating a hostile and unsafe learning environment for myself and for other students here," she told MSNBC.

Congratulations, Yale, and Missouri, and American academia in general, you've succeeded in undermining the ethic of free inquiry, disinterested scholarship, and certainly anything like decent manners.

Related: The most succinct account of the insanity at Yale over one woman's refusal to judge Halloween costumes. If Jerelyn Luther gets her way, and Nicholas & Erika Christakis are fired, such incidents are only going to escalate.

I have a friend in Alberta who has always been left-of-centre politically. He was not happy with Harper nor the PC party in his own province. So I wrote him recently, seeking confirmation that he must be overjoyed with the elections of both Rachel Notley's NDP provincially and Justin Trudeau's Liberals federally. The message I received back was quite unexpected:

Not entirely happy is a bit of an understatement. I'm livid.

I think we're pretty much on the same page here.

We are mortgaging our kids futures. And balancing the books by 2020. Please!!!!!!

It will indeed be a different Alberta and Canada 4 years from now.

Reading through this I now understand why he's so upset:

She will increase spending on necessary infrastructure by $4.5 billion over five years.

And to pay for it all, she will borrow.

The budget predicts that Alberta's provincial deficit will total $6 billion this year alone and $18 billion over the next four years.

For Alberta, all of this is unusually bold.

Though Charles Adler left his radio gig in Winnipeg to move to Vancouver, he has a new show on satellite radio, from which a podcast is published as well. In the most recent episode he interviews Warren & Lisa Kinsella. Much of the talk was about the Canadian Senate. Mrs. Kinsella has a "unique" perspective starting around 19:00 into the podcast:

"Because Stephen Harper first, of course, stacked the Senate. So we have an imbalance in the Senate. We have Conservatives dominating it."

Her comment necessitated a quick check of Senate appointments:

Stephen Harper: 59 Tories

Jean Chretien: 72 Liberals + 3 Independents

Pat Condell has some words for warning for EU citizens:

Side note: Canadians who care about the sovereignty of their own country should carefully monitor what Justin Trudeau signs us up for at COP21 in Paris.

Serious question: Can anyone paint a picture how universities can ever get out of this politically correct, dumbed down quagmire they're in?

But I believe this problem could be solved with a one-way bus ticket to BC.

h/t Larry

(Sorry - link fixed!)

While right-of-centre North Americans have legitimate reasons to be concerned with the policies of Trudeau and Obama, one must remember that there are different degrees of Leftism, ranging from centre-left to far-left to ... something verging on insanity. The latter seems to be in play amongst Britain's Labour Party these days.

Janet Daley reports on the recent hiring of Seumas Milne, a militantly left rich boy with apparent daddy issues:

Mr Milne's views are way, way beyond what is regarded as Left-wing in the North London circles where endless hours are spent talking half-baked anti-capitalist rubbish. He is a supporter of terrorist organisations, an undaunted apologist for the defunct Soviet system and a declared enemy of governments that support free markets.

Apologies to all SDA readers for this posting being prematurely published. Personal events got in the way of it being properly completed. Those issues are now resolved and here is the full posting, as intended.

2011: Stephen Harper's Tories win majority government with 39.62% of popular vote -
The reaction to this victory was a resounding refrain that 60% of Canadians don't support Harper and what an unfair & undemocratic process the current Canadian voting system is:

• Voting system skews results, delivers phony majority


• A Conservative majority? Not so fast.

• Justin Trudeau and Liberal Party Prevail With Stunning Rout in Canada
• Justin Trudeau's emphasis on evidence-based policies paved the way to Liberal victory
• Canada to return to its honest broker role under Trudeau

It is quite astounding how the so-called principles and convictions of some people change depending on which team loses.

Now that the bogeyman of Stephen Harper is gone, Rex Murphy asks some important questions about who the Left in Canada will now focus their barbs of hate on. While Leftists across the nation insist that they don't want "American style" politics in Canada, the rampant HDS evidence of the past 9 years strongly suggests that they LOVE, and even NEED, a figurehead to hate upon. Here's what Murphy had to say:

Speaking of Mr. Harper -- now that he is, effectively, no longer prime minister, who or what shall fill the void? He was the lightning rod of our every discontent. He was a monster bent on destroying our democracy, a fascist who worked on a secret agenda for a full nine years in office and of which even now, with his leaving office, we remain still in darkness, innocent of its terrors. For you see it was far more important to keep it secret than to execute it.

He was, variously Machiavelli, Mussolini, Mao and Hitler. Harper Canada's image in the forums of the world, and purged all our "Canadian values" here at home. He was the Sauron of Mount Doom-on-the-Rideau waving his terrible arms from the towers of fear and hate. He was tepid on global warming and down on selfies. He liked hockey.

Well, who can fill that vital role? Who can be the magnet of our great discontent now that he is going and soon to be gone? Can we abide a country that is now all sunshine and butterflies, all summer holidays and hootenanys? I predict a Canada invective-deprived, all honey and harmony. Post-Harper, all is calm, all is bright. Can we live with that? Can Twitter survive? Will Raffi hang up the mandolin?

The secret ingredient: Low Information Voters!

Maybe it would have been wiser to pay attention to the homefront instead of sending your government off to campaign in what is increasingly looking like a lost cause.

Aaron Mair is the president of the Sierra Club in America. He's not a scientist but a politician & social justice warrior. Here's his LinkedIn summary:

Aaron Mair is a 31 year veteran urban environmental activist; regional and national Environmental Justice organizer and strategist from the State of New York.; Current National Board of Director of the Sierra Club (750,000 members); Former Atlantic Chapter Chair of 41,000-member NYS Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter; New Your State Pinbush Preserve Commissioner; New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's Environmental Justice Advisory Group; Environmental Protection Agency Region Two, Year 2000 Citizen Environmentalist Activist Award recipient. Won a $1.6 million federal RCRA settlement with New York State for the community of Arbor Hill in Albany, New York and used it to create two nonprofit community service organizations.; 1990, 2000, & 2010 Reapportionment GIS technical expert to the Albany NAACP that won the creation of four majority Minority legislative seats in Albany County.

Senator Ted Cruz recently had some straightforward questions which Mr. Mair found very uncomfortable:

Note: The Sierra Club has some interesting preferences when it comes to political donations.

A tour around the Internet today uncovered some interesting finds:

• Red Star: Why Stephen Harper has no fear of strategic voting


• National Observer: How to vote Harper out

While the views of the Red Star are well known to all SDA regulars, those of the National Observer are likely not. A quick search revealed that the editor is one Linda Solomon Wood, who turns out to be the sister of Joel Solomon, the "brains" behind Vancouver's repugnant mayor, Gregor "Aren't I fabulous" Robertson. Both Solomon siblings are Americans who transplanted themselves to Canada to inject their version of "progressive" politics into our country. One wonders how many Canadians realize how deeply they're being manipulated by these foreign propagandists?

Dear "Progressives"/Liberals/Leftists: Please carefully listen to what Pat Condell is saying. Clearly most of his words will upset you. But here's the more important question: What precisely is he saying that is inaccurate or just not true?

In this recent interview, Mark Steyn talks about Canadian "Human Rights" commissions, Michael Mann, the GOP's lack of true leadership, the Conservative Movement's failure to achieve much of anything, Donald Trump, and a host of other things. Enlightening as always!

First there was Fascism: 50,000,000 Dead
Then there was Communism: 100,000,000+ Dead

Now there is Islamism. How many millions will have to die before Leftists throughout the West wake up to the fact that these folks are not just "misunderstood? Until that future tipping point, Leftists will continue engaging in their never ending culture wars with anyone who dares disagree with them on even the slightest point. When the death tolls do start stacking up, do you think any Leftist will reflect for a moment to look at the blood on their own hands caused by their continual efforts to stop politicians from putting an end to Islamism? Highly doubtful.

A friend in the U.S. Midwest recently told me that she is strongly considering financing her nephew's 4 year education at an out of state university. This would likely cost at least $50,000 per year. While she's doing quite well professionally, this would still be a major burden on her.

I've long believed that prospective students and their parents should carefully look at the likely ROI of a university education before blindly shelling out the incredible amount of money it costs to attend most American post secondary institutions. Otherwise, to paraphrase Mark Steyn, one's educational pursuits are more of a hobby.

Rex Murphy chimes in on the sad state of "higher education" in both Canada and America these days:

Some universities -- and, in particularly, some humanities departments -- have, over the last few decades, wandered far from the primary purpose of what these institutions were designed for: to teach what is worth knowing; to train the intellect; to acquaint students with, and help them appreciate, the glories of the human mind and its finest achievements.

Concomitantly, they have descended into pseudo-studies, become infatuated with low pop culture, become obsessed with faddish social justice issues, turned hypervigilant on their students' "comfort levels" and are pruriently concerned with sexism narratives, cause politics and "identity" zealotry. They bear almost no resemblance to the institutions of higher learning -- higher in its full applications -- that they, at least ideally, have always aspired to be.

Junk in, junk out, is a variation on the computer axiom. Any institution that puts Madonna and hegemony in the same sentence, never mind in the title of a thesis, has cut the cords on the balloon and is floating off on some vague, directionless journey to nowhere in particular.

Imagine if it had been an unidentifiable clock?

An important lesson for citizens in all democracies is unfolding in Britain where Jeremy Corbyn, arguably the most left-wing leader in the history of the Labour Party, is not pretending to be anyone other than who he truly is. Polls are now showing what Britons think of this unrepentant Leftist:

This should be a good education for voters in Canada & America as to why NDP'ers, Liberals, and Democrats pretend to be moderates before elections. Then when they get into power, they claim a "clear mandate from the voters" and proceed to destroy economies and the lives of people within.

September 12, 2015: British MP, Jeremy Corbyn, joyously sings The Red Flag after his decisive win of the leadership of the Labour Party.

September 15, 2015: Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, refuses to sing the British national anthem at a service to honour Battle of Britain heroes.

Leftists across Britain must be so proud!

The Guardian, Britain's mouthpiece for the Left, are absolutely overjoyed about Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour Party on the first ballot:

Corbyn did more than contribute to the debate. He won it in staggering style. Yesterday the man brought in to make up the numbers was named as Labour's 19th full-time leader having won almost 60% of the vote. Just over 21 years after it had installed Tony Blair to take on the Tories from the centre ground, paving the way for three successive general election wins, Labour had vacated that territory and elected arguably its most left-wing leader ever and handed him an extraordinary mandate.

Make no mistake, Corbyn is the Far Left of the Far Left. The next election in the UK will see the middle of the road Tories vs. the furthest left policy agenda Labour has ever offered up to the electorate. Corbyn's supporters are convinced that this is what is needed to restore them to power. Others are not so sure.

Illinois grandmother, Peggy Hubbard, has some important words for her fellow African American citizens. Definite language warning but well worth watching:

When you propagate and validate the concept of "micro-aggression", people of this ilk will use it to justify their decisions.

There are no "safe-places" to hide from "triggers".

Perhaps the media and the SJW's will learn.

Heh.

Well known feminist author, Camille Paglia, was interviewed recently. She is most certainly a woman of the Left but isn't happy with how the collective Leftist mind has been hijacked:

Historically, talk radio arose via Rush Limbaugh in the early 1990s precisely because of this stranglehold by liberal discourse. For heaven's sake, I was a Democrat who had just voted for Jesse Jackson in the 1988 primary, but I had to fight like mad in the early 1990s to get my views heard. The resistance of liberals in the media to new ideas was enormous. Liberals think of themselves as very open-minded, but that's simply not true! Liberalism has sadly become a knee-jerk ideology, with people barricaded in their comfortable little cells. They think that their views are the only rational ones, and everyone else is not only evil but financed by the Koch brothers. It's so simplistic!

There is much to read but it's well worth it. Pass it on to your friends on the Left. Most will likely be too close minded to hear what she's saying but hopefully it'll crack open a few minds, if only a little.

h/t Lev

This past evening, in Lafayette, Louisiana, a murderer has reportedly killed at least one person and injured many more.

Media Party journolists [sic] the world over have just opened to Page 1 of their playbook for such circumstances. Here's the checklist:

• Is the shooter a Muslim? If so, hold off on mentioning his name or religion for the longest amount of time possible.


• If he's white then dig far and wide to find out even the slightest connection to the GOP, the Tea Party, any other conservative connections, Christianity, and the NRA.


• Find out if any of the victims were non-white. If so, then immediately start using phrases like "Hate Crimes", "Racism", and "Black Lives Matter".


• Retrieve the long list of regular guests who will espouse the usual talking points about gun violence in America.


• Being that Louisiana has a Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, find out his stance on gun control and blame him for the entire event. The fact that Jindal is a presidential candidate provides an added bonus to the media as they can now destroy his campaign as well.


• Mock anyone who points out that the Grand Theatre, where this occurred, is a gun-free zone.

Twitter feed

Update: At least two people have been confirmed murdered and the shooter is reported to be a 58 year old white man.

The progressive hipsters who attended the recent music festival in Pemberton, BC left the place in quite a state of mess. It would be fascinating to do a scientific study of the correlation of those who leave garbage at such large event vs. their voting patterns. Any theories what such numbers might show?

The hypocrisy of those who claim to be environmentally responsible but actually aren't in their own lives is reminiscent of the Toronto Star's Catherine Porter.

A rather bizarre criminal harassment trial is occurring in Toronto:

Indeed, Elliott's chief sin appears to have been that he dared to disagree with the two young feminists and political activists.

He said the idea that all it takes to end up charged with criminal harassment is vigorous participation in online debate with those who will not brook dissent "will have a chilling effect on people's ability to communicate, and not just on Twitter".

Brian Lilley has a long interview with Christie Blatchford on the subject.

Now Is The Time At SDA When We Juxtapose:

June 18th, 2015 to Present : In the aftermath of the murders in Charleston, South Carolina, the mainstream media was nothing short of obsessed with finding an explanation and placing blame in very specific directions.

July 17th, 2015 : In the aftermath of the murders in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the mainstream media appears absolutely clueless as to why the murderer did what he did:

• No motive known for gunman opening fire on marines


• 4 Marines killed, a dead suspect and questions of motive


• Chattanooga Terror Investigation Focuses on Suspect's Motive


• FBI Has "No Motive" For Hixson Man Who Carried Out Rampage Against Military Targets


• Chattanooga shootings: FBI sees no terrorism link

If you have a theory as to why these shootings occurred, you may want to let your local news media know so they can pass on the information to the authorities. They're clearly clueless and dumbfounded at this time.

Via email;

Dearest Comrade Katherine,

In 2011 your blog noted that a book entitled The Benefits of Socialism was newly available. I am
pleased to report that this fine publication has sold quite well and has even made inroads in the DC
political establishment. Last year for instance, US Senator Mike Lee declared The Benefits of
Socialism to be his favourite book. As it should be, by the way.

I thought you should be made aware that the success of this book is largely due to the coverage of
SDA. We only announced this book in two places; SDA being one of these and the other being entirely
unproductive. Well, SDA is not unproductive. I know you know this, and thought you'd appreciate
the affirmation. Be therefore affirmed.

Your egalitarian superior,

Gwen

We only use our power for good.

MTV is soon launching a new show:

More here and here and here.

Here's a recommendation for everyone who supports this White Privilege initiative:

• If you're currently attending college or university, or about to, then you will agree to forego your enrollment so that you can let a less privileged Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Middle Eastern student take your place instead.


• If you're not attending an institute of higher learning then you will agree to borrow at least $10,000 per year, for 4 years, to finance the cost of a non-white student.

Former Belgian PM, Guy Verhofstadt, had some candid things to say to Greek PM, Alexis Tsipras:

Verhofstadt's words were very clear. Whether Tsipras and the Greek people are interested to act upon them is much less certain.

Justin Ling is a journalist in Ottawa who is not very happy with Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. Listen to him, in his own words, tell Charles Adler why.

All things being equal, he does have a point. The media are supposed to be the ones who hold politicians accountable for their words and actions.

However, in the space known as reality, things aren't equal. Since at least 1968, Canada's "journalists" have, for the most part, been partisan hacks, de facto PR staffers for Canada's left-of-centre parties. In days past their bias was most noticeably in support of the Liberals but in more recent years some have grown affectionately close to the NDP. It would be most interesting to observe the brain waves of a random sampling of Canadian journalists as they were shown photos of the three major political leaders. Predicted results: Trudeau - Love , Mulcair - Loyalty , Harper - Disdain/Hate/Anger = Harper Derangement Syndrome.

Amidst the larger story that is the Greek Crisis, there's a very personal touching one that came about when a Greek-Australian learned of a 77 year old Greek man who discovered he could no longer get his pension.

Lest we forget though, here's a sober analysis of the insanity that appears to have gripped many of the Greek people (podcast).

BBC News has published first-person views of four business people on a small Greek island called Aegina. It's well worth watching each of them.

If you're able to vote in Canada's federal election on October 19, 2015, think carefully, while you watch these videos, about the NDP & Liberal's standard nonchalant views on debt and the damaging effect it can have on a society. While Harper's Conservatives clearly haven't lowered the debt in any way near the amount that most SDA readers would want, does any reasonable person believe that Mulcair or Trudeau would take our debt in the right direction, namely down?!

The Leftist "intellectuals" in San Francisco should be ashamed of themselves for their disastrous policy of declaring SF a Sanctuary City. Kate Steinle is the latest victim of their nonsensical "heartfelt" thinking.

Sadly, these vapid narcissists won't likely lose a wink of sleep.

h/t Bacardi Breezer

Throughout history, cult members haven't been accurate predictors of the end of the world. Such has also always been the case with Devout Leftists making predictions on . . . well, pretty much everything.

Enter one Jeff Rubin, a Toronto talking head who bills himself as an economist but has a rich history of making very bad predictions. Charles Adler interviewed him earlier today. The discriminating ear will find great hilarity in what this man has to say. From a psychological point of view, it's particularly fascinating how absolutely shameless he is about dismissing his abysmal track record. One can only suppose that, because he's mouthing the politically correct views about Global Warming, his credibility has been recycled. Some might beg to differ.

In Britain, consultant gynaecologist Professor Geeta Nargund has written a letter to Education Secretary Nicky Morgan that some deem to be controversial. Why? Because she dared to state the truth, namely that the reproductive abilities of women over the age of 30 tends to diminish.

"I have witnessed all too often the shock and agony on the faces of women who realise they have left it too late to start a family.

"For so many, this news comes as a genuine surprise and the sense of devastation and regret can be overwhelming."

She added: "Information is power and the best way to empower people to take control of their fertility is through education.

"Ideally, if a woman is ready for a child, she should start trying by the time she is 30. She should consider having a child early because as a woman gets older, her fertility declines sharply."

If Nargund had been a man, particularly a white male, do you think he'd still have a job today?!

More here

Dear SDA readers, can you tell the difference between this and a slick multimedia presentation carefully developed by an environmental group? Me neither.

Political Correctness is much like a rigged poker game where feminists almost always hold the better hand. Almost always. The one case where they intuitively KNOW they will LOSE is in any battle with Muslims. That's why you won't hear a whisper from the usual suspects over this:

Muslim boys high school soccer team refuses to play against team with 2 girls

A boys soccer team from ISNA Private Islamic High School refused to finish a game because two females were on the opposing team during a Brampton tournament on May 26.

Robert F. Hall Catholic School, in Caledon does not have a girls team so the two females played on the senior boys team, which was approved by the Region of Peel Secondary School Athletic Association (ROPSSAA).

During halftime, the ISNA Private Islamic High School team brought the concern to the referee. Robert F. Hall Catholic School school was winning the game 3-1 at that point.

Okay class, let's repeat this year's mantra at Leftist Prep School:

"Stephen Harper is a terrible, evil man who we must hate & far. Omar Khadr is an innocent young victim and therefore a hero to all oppressed people. Stephen bad, Omar good, Stephen bad ...."

Source <- Nausea alert

Update: Charles Adler interviews Michelle Shephard, the journolist journalist deeply involved in this "documentary". You decide whether she's objective, has Stockholm Syndrome, or wants to date Khadr. One thing's for sure, she's on a crusade and using your tax dollars to fund it!

Find an anti-Semite;

Maybe the Methodist "missionary" and "peace with justice" advocate [Janet Lahr Lewis] will explain what she means by "ongoing Palestinian Holocaust" in her next column. Except the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society has evidently deleted her last "holocaust" column, whether from shame or prudence. This Capitol Hill agency routinely demonizes Israel and for years has been trying to persuade its denomination to divest from Israel. But apparently it's not ready to embrace openly a call to boycott the Holocaust Museum

The Ontario Lieberals appear to be practiced the tried & true doctrine of American Leftists, namely that there's no reason whatsoever for them to follow the laws that ordinary people (aka peasants) have to. Joe Warmington explains:

As reported by the Toronto Sun's Antonella Artuso, Tracy McLaughlin and Christina Blizzard on Feb. 5, 2015, the OPP in an Information to Obtain expressed a view that independent Olivier, who ran as a Liberal under Wynne in the 2014 general election, was "lured" to vacate.

The documents were submitted to the court by OPP anti-rackets Det.-Const. Erin Thomas who wrote: "I do believe that Gerry Lougheed and Patricia Sorbara both engaged in soliciting and negotiating with Andrew Olivier in their respective conversations," and "I believe the words spoken by both Lougheed and Sorbara to Olivier assists me in my belief the Criminal Code offence has been committed."

No charges have been laid.

Why does the left kowtow to Islam?

h/t WallyJ

Side note: Wendy Mesley has long been a poster girl for Canada's Liberal Left. Her questions in this video show how shockingly naive and ignorant she and her ilk are. It's disturbing.

Apparently the "enlightened" folks on the City Council of Richmond Hill, Ontario believe that the Canadian Anthem would be offensive to their proceedings. At the risk of offending their delicate sensibilities, here's a glimpse into what happened late last year at a Canadian War Cemetery in the Netherlands. Apparently Dutch politicians aren't offended by our anthem like their Richmond Hill colleagues are:

Now Is The Time At SDA When We Juxtapose:

May 6, 2015: Elizabeth May issues press release on National Day to End Bullying:

Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada and MP (Saanich - Gulf Islands), issued the following statement on National Day to End Bullying:

"Today is a chance to celebrate diversity, to stand up, and let all young Canadians know that someone cares. The first step to address this growing problem in our schools and in the workplace is to listen, share and provide an ear to those who need someone they trust. Everyone deserves a safe space to learn and work.

"Let us work together today, on National Day to End Bullying, to ensure that our youth feels safe, sharing a sense of community and belonging. I hope all Canadians will join me today to spread this message of hope."

Yet throughout her career, Lizzy May hasn't merely disagreed with her opponents, she has ridiculed them in deeply personal ways:

• Stephen Harper really isn't Canadian


• Stephen Harper's stance on climate change is "a grievance worse than Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of the Nazis."


• Stephen Harper is "converting the Canadian spy agency into a secret police with virtually unlimited powers."


• God is not crazy about George W. Bush wrecking the planet


• Stephen Harper is enacting "the death of freedom" for Canadians


• Lizzy belittles both Joe Oliver and Stephen Harper about climate science


• "Stephen Harper represented a real threat to everything I'd ever worked on as someone in the environmental movement"


• "For some reason Stephen Harper has decided to make everything a fight to the death."

The WaPo's Kathleen Parker recently penned this attack piece against Pamela Geller. One wonders if anyone at the paper comprehends the self-mocking nature of the headline: "Pamela Geller's abuse of free speech"

Related: Brian Lilley interviews the winning cartoonist, Bosch Fawstin.

Update: Mark Steyn shares his thoughts h/t 'BJG'

Lest anyone think otherwise, these are also the same people who have limited math skills, no business skills, and constantly enact policies that can't be paid for without severe debt.

Today's letters to the Calgary Herald provide for interesting reading. Here are two very different views:

Shameful

Shame on the Alberta PCs for violating the principles of good government, namely the protection of individual rights. Shame on Danielle Smith, whose turncoat flight from liberty arguably handed Alberta to the tax-and-spend NDP.

And shame on the Albertans who voted in socialism -- the evil and destructive philosophy that punishes those who are creative, productive and responsible to reward those who are not.

Glenn Woiceshyn, Calgary

People person

Congratulations, Alberta! You have shown backbone and the conviction that hope triumphs over fear.

The smug, self-serving, self-satisfied, condescending Tories are gone. I hold no political office or position with the NDP. I have known Rachel Notley for 15 years and you will find her a woman of integrity, balance and judgment.

She is not hamstrung by ideology. She is a pragmatic, humble, warm person, whom I know you will come to trust very quickly. She and her party will govern, not rule. Her concern is for people, and she knows that people need good employment as much as anything to prosper.

Stay engaged. We need to be led, not preached to.

Lance Rancier, Edmonton

After riots overtook West Baltimore on Monday, a hashtag began to appear on Twitter and other social media -- #BALTIMORELOOTCREW -- linking together posts that depicted pilfered prescription drugs and demolished store shelves.

But that "crew" was not actually in Baltimore protesting the death of Freddie Gray, according to a local cybersecurity company. Many photos shared using that label, and others, were taken years ago, and often not even in the United States, employees at Federal Hill-based ZeroFox found. [...]

"The company's specialty is rooting out cyber criminals lurking on social media. And when West Baltimore erupted in rioting Monday, its employees felt compelled to apply their skills. ZeroFox worked into the night tracing tweets and Facebook accounts that shared photos of looting and violence. What they found was that much of the activity was coming from well outside of Baltimore, in some cases from Russia, China, India and the Middle East."

Just Soros, hiding his tracks.

(Via)

Alberta's Wildrose Party leader, Brian Jean, wants to reform health care in a positive way. He has a very personal story that's motivating him to do so. Watch the usual suspect on the Left destroy any changes he attempts to make.

Opening up about the recent death of his son with the Edmonton Sun editorial board on Tuesday, Jean said the three months he spent in hospital with his family changed the Wildrose approach to health care. While other parties have blasted the Wildrose plan for wait time guarantees as two-tiered health care, Jean says he's merely aiming to "fix a broken system."

"I had three specialists arguing in front of my son about what he had, all of which would kill him within two to 10 years," said Jean, tearing up and taking a brief pause from the interview.

Speaking passionately, Jean recounted the weeks he spent with his 24-year-old son Michael as nurses wheeled-in broken equipment and doctors misdiagnosed him seven times, once causing liver problems when they gave him the wrong treatment. By the time they identified that Michael had an acute lymphoma, it was too late. He died in late March.

"I promised him I would fix it -- and I will," says Jean.

Sept. 11, 2014 - Liberal leader Justin Trudeau hints at the legalization of marijuana in Canada.

Jan. 1, 2015 - Wannabe Liberal MP candidate, Jodie Emery, discusses the support for her candidacy from Liberal Party insiders.

Apr. 20, 2015 - Jodie Emery's husband, Marc, reveals his beliefs about children and marijuana:

The marijuana crusader says he has a message for all BC parents.

Emery claims parents should encourage their children to spend more time with "pot people."

"Nothing bad is going to happen to your son or daughter if they smoke marijuana, unlike if they hang out with people who are into athletics, or into alcohol, or into a number of things, fast cars, I say that pot makes your teenager a lot safer."

In the 2015 Canadian Federal Election, one wonders how many parents of teenagers are going to stay home and not vote or even actually vote for the Liberals? This, having plenty of facts abound about what damage marijuana can do to a developing brain. But as the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for - you may get it.

Unbeknownst to many, because the Media Party mostly refuses to report on it, Wisconsin has been Ground Zero for Domestic Lawfare against conservative minded people:

It was indeed a home invasion, but the people who were pouring in were Wisconsin law-enforcement officers. Armed, uniformed police swarmed into the house. Plainclothes investigators cornered her and her newly awakened family. Soon, state officials were seizing the family's personal property, including each person's computer and smartphone, filled with the most intimate family information. Why were the police at Anne's home? She had no answers. The police were treating them the way they'd seen police treat drug dealers on television.

Yet no one in this family was a "perp." Instead, like Cindy, they were American citizens guilty of nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights to support Act 10 and other conservative causes in Wisconsin. Sitting there shocked and terrified, this citizen -- who is still too intimidated to speak on the record -- kept thinking, "Is this America?"

In case you have $1.3 Billion in extra pocket change that's weighing you down, just give it to the Los Angeles Unified School District and they'll quickly find a way to get rid of it for you.  That's the amount of money they wasted on a program that provided over 120,000 iPads for various uses.  It's a textbook example of how Big Business benefits from Big Government.

That would be the thuggish totalitarian ones:

*

On a related note, is anyone else bothered by the use of the term "Progressives" these days? For a long time they called themselves "liberals". It eventually became quite apparent that their views were quite the opposite of 'liberal'. Then seemingly overnight they insisted upon being referred to as "progressives". From Day One, their views and actions were the polar opposite of 'progressive' aka moving forward.

Does anyone seriously doubt that it won't be too much longer before they expect us to call them "The Enlightened"?! And this from a group that mostly shuns Christians at every opportunity. Not a problem for a Disciple of Leftism though because "hypocrisy" simply isn't in their dictionary.

Writer and mother of three, Lydia Lovric, has written an article that violates the First Rule of Leftism, namely don't stray one millimetre from the Collective Narrative. Dare to do so and you will be accused of hate speech.

The anger and vitriol from the Leftist "Feminists" is truly something to behold. It seems clear that her commentary on mothers who chose to go back to work very soon after their children were born, but didn't actually have to, hit much too close to the truth that these women have tried hard to suppress. Charles Adler interviews Lovric here.

More here and here.

h/t Aurelius

Is it not interesting how a White Leftist can always be dug up who insists that a large group of non-white people need not take any responsibility for their own providence?!

L.A. comedy writer Jason Shapiro has created a fake Twitter account called Los Feliz Day Care. It mocks over praised, participation trophy, entitled children, all of whom have helicopter parents. Some examples:

Waiting on 3 parent consent forms before we can honor #PiDay with this raw vegan fruit pie. Must be on recycled paper w/conflict-free ink!

— Los Feliz Day Care (@LosFelizDayCare) March 14, 2015

Burrito (2) threw up on our Keystone XL petitions so we have to find a new PM activity. Not her fault - her manny gave her one gummy bear.

— Los Feliz Day Care (@LosFelizDayCare) March 10, 2015

More here

Quebec Imam: "Beating [women] in Islam is a type of education"

Don't forget while watching this, Justin Trudeau is wagging his finger in your face and pointing out that if you disagree with anything a Muslim Imam says, then YOU are a bigot and a racist. Welcome to the New Canada with PM Trudeau Deux.

The Lives of Others is a disturbing film about East Germany during the Soviet era. It's a careful examination of how the government got neighbours to spy on neighbours and the authorities spied on everyone.

With a similar mindset, "Two Democratic members of the New York City city council will propose paying people to spy on other residents' idling vehicles." More here.

If you can't follow the rules of society, then society shouldn't have to live with you.

The legislation fits into the Harper government's tough-on-crime agenda and follows through on a promise made in the 2013 Speech from the Throne.

Can you say 'wedge'?

Update: The announcement.

This will include a mandatory sentence of life without parole for first degree murders involving:

sexual assault;
kidnapping or forcible confinement;
terrorism;
the killing of police officers or corrections officers; or,
any first degree murders that are found to be of a particularly brutal nature.

The Prime Minister also recently announced the Government's intention to introduce legislation that would end the practice of making early release available for repeat violent offenders.

Very interesting analysis.

h/t Brigitte Pellerin

Never forget, Manitoba MP Pat Martin is one of our leaders. :-(

Update: Charles Adler reports on GaunchGate.

Seattle based Amazon.com is in an interesting battle with the Obama regime over the subject of aerial drones. It's interesting that Obama supporters constantly drone on (pun deliberate) about how "progressive" they are. Not always, it seems.

Columnist Adrian MacNair, who is no stranger to SDA over the years, has gotten himself into much hot water over this column. His editor has now apologized. Here's a report on the episode.

Comments welcome.

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!

CBC, April 17, 2012 (1:10 mark): This Hour has 22 Minutes star Mary Walsh mocks Rob Ford and advises him to "put the plug in the jug".

CBC, January 28, 2015: "Drawing from her personal struggle with alcoholism, the This Hour Has 22 Minutes star speaks frankly about the loneliness and isolation of addiction, and why stigma hasn't stopped her from speaking out."

Big tip 'o the hat to Mike.

Interested to know how UBC's well paid professors spend YOUR tax dollars? Writing up idiotic documents like this one. One wonders what percentage of them have divested themselves of ALL fossil fuels in their own lives?!? How does one pronounce "zero" in Academic-Gobbledegook?!?

Thankfully some out there have retained their common sense.

The Hutt crime syndicate on Tatooine had their leader, Jabba. The American Leftist movement has Michael Moore as one of their leaders. Dear Mikey isn't very happy these days. Here's why:

Last year saw the rise of a new narrative of self-loathing Leftists concerning "Male Privilege" involving video games. Well known feminist, Anita Sarkeesian, produced this video on the subject. It's not clear whether those in her video are just actors playing the roles of real men or simply overgrown Leftist males with daddy issues.

Ms. Sarkeesian is not without controversy. Some have suggested that she is getting quite wealthy playing the role of the permanent victim.

Canadian vlogger Karen Straughan recently made two videos on the subject, here and here. They're well worth watching!

(Via email) Emergency Fundraising Appeal from National Farmers Union President Jan Slomp!

Delegates and members at convention heard first-hand about the precarious financial situation the NFU is projecting for 2014-2015 - a deficit of more than $75,000. As usual, our members faced this challenge head-on. In less than two days, 120 delegates and visitors contributed $15,000 to defray our budget shortfall!

Careful management by the Board of Directors allowed the NFU to absorb similar or larger revenue losses in each of the last two years without reducing staff or noticeably cutting services. Staff, volunteer Board members and members across the country all worked together to provide the policy analysis, research and publications that farmers - in fact all Canadians - need in these hostile times.

Even with the emergency fundraising at convention and the Board's careful stewardship, the NFU cannot survive a third revenue shortfall of this size without cutting staff and services to the point that we will no longer fulfill our mandate or be able to recruit or retain members.

Tip of the hat to Shawn, who's as distraught as we all are.

Obama's credit card denied at restaurant on New York City trip.

David Berner is interviewed about the latest sad chapter in Vancouver infamous drug scene:

Naomi Wolf has some "interesting" views of what's happening in the world these days. Here's an example:

Her initial posts on ISIS repeatedly stated that confirmation of the authenticity of their beheading videos "has not happened yet." Wolf said that the media was ignoring "journalistic red flags" in that the sole source of the videos had been "SITE, which is run by an anti-Muslim activist with half a million dollars in US funding in 2004." (In fact, the videos were widely distributed on open-source jihadist online outlets. Maryland-based nonprofit SITE monitors extremist social media.) She also detailed an alleged incident, which I was not able to confirm, of a website "based in Doha, address registered at a private intelligence firm in the UK" that she said had spread news of a Canadian journalist, who turned out not to exist, taken hostage in Syria.

So, I guess Michelle Obama won't be campaigning for these school boards anytime soon. *

Via Drudge

Rex Murphy is not very impressed with the Shiny Pony's recent utterances:

It wasn't a slip of the tongue. (Oh, there's a phrase he could play with.) It was the signature of an unserious mind, not to mention a mindless hit on the pilots of Canada's military, to paint them so glibly as extensions of some macho ethos.

We should expect more -- both in class and thought -- from a national leader, especially when he is speaking in the context of the miseries that have been inflicted by one of the most sadistic collection of terrorists the planet has ever offered. How will they be stopped but by force?

Events do not have a single dimension. The daunting complexity of world affairs, and their intertwisted moral ambiguities, is a hallmark of this new wild world of ours. Straight-line answers are available to none. Dealing with those ambiguities, having the maturity and depth to deal with them, is what we in Canada, and elsewhere in the world, want in our leaders.

This is not the first time that the Liberals' default despisement of the Canadian military has come to the fore. This past gem from them comes to mind.

h/t Harry M. & Mark L.

Update: This comment from SDA regular 'Occam' is brilliant:

Rex postulates that MP Zoolander's gaffes reveal an "unserious" mind. I would quantify that by stating that mini-me Trudough's mindless juvenile gaffes reveal a political party which is now perpetually "not serious" about the important affairs of the nation or its people - they are so detached from the actual agendas and mechanics of providing good government, they have fielded a litany of inept/naive doofus losers as PM bait in hopes of hoodwinking the public so they can gain power - not to govern, but to plunder the public treasure for themselves and their patronage cartel.

"Humanitarian intervention" is nonserious psycho-babble that belongs in preteen encounter group therapy, not federal cabinet foreign policy. This is a Rump paty which survives solely on the low info voter and cannot be taken seriously as a governing alternative.

""Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

U.S. radio show host Michael Graham made a powerful argument to Irish listeners recently in this 10 minute podcast.

Fact is, most everything he said could have been presented to a Canadian audience. Why do so few Canadian politicians ever take the time to make the [small-c] conservative argument about how our country would work better with LESS government?!

Warning: Further reading of this item may necessitate the use of one of these.

The Shiny Pony appears to have a growing group of fanboys & fangirls. No, we're not talking about members of the Media Party, who are lifetime charter members of his fan club. Rather, this concerns the general public, particularly those susceptible to HDS. Here's a sampling:

"Oh my God, it's Justin Trudeau! Justin, I love you!" shouted a startled Joanna Ludlow, 21, when she realized Trudeau, clearly relaxed and basking in the crowd's affection, was leading a group of flamboyantly-dressed Liberals dancing through Vancouver's West End in the blazing sunshine.

Trudeau was in a long-sleeve white cotton shirt, blue jeans and alligator shoes, wearing cheap gold and red beads someone put around his neck just before the parade began. He moved easily from one side of the street to the other as the crowds responded to his smile and wave like a magnet.

Ken Bonham, a 57-year-old Revelstoke businessman and usually a Conservative voter, said after posing for a photo with Trudeau that he'd "definitely" consider a Liberal switch.

"He clearly connects with the working man. He's not uptight like other politicians who you only see in a suit and tie."

It's not so safe in Chicago these days. Not even at parades. In a proudly Democrat city, bullets can't seem to keep from flying around.

Jimmy Carter is upset that Barack Obama doesn't call him for advice:

Jimmy Carter complains that he "don't get no respect" from Barack Obama, who never calls him for advice. But why should the former president expect more from Mr. Obama than he gets from everybody else? Last week, Mr. Carter busied himself accusing Israel of "war crimes" for defending itself against the rockets and artillery barrages of Hamas, which the United States officially regards as a terrorist organization.

One wonders if Carter today is a preview of Obama tomorrow.

*

Mary's Gourmet Diner in Winston-Salem, North Carolina has been giving patrons a discount if they prayed publicly before their meal. A bit unusual perhaps but it was their way of thanking people for expressing gratitude for their food.

Of course, militant atheists couldn't let this continue so they threatened a lawsuit. The discount is now gone.

It has frequently been expressed by commenters on SDA that if you want to understand the Leftist mindset, you have to observe what they most rail against. The complaint they most often charge religious people with is that "they try to push their religion (aka belief system) on others". Yet here's a textbook example of them doing exactly the same thing. How do you spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y in Leftist-speak?!

Attention Canadians: Danish citizen Holly Chabowski knows better than you do how you should live your life! In other words, she's a natural fit for Canada's Green Party.

Moral and intellectual superiors - whatever.

"Kkkkhhhhhkkkamas" - Benjamin Netanyahu

— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) August 6, 2014

Disgraced former Alberta Premier Alison Redford has suddenly resigned as an MLA.

Are we allowed to ask when charges will be laid against her?!?

Update: Even though Redford is an extreme example of a CINO, more than a few Leftists are going to try to hang her tenure around Stephen Harper's neck. Here's an example:

Internet trolls are like modern-day bounty hunters, except for having worse morals & living in mothers' basements.

— Pat Sajak (@patsajak) August 4, 2014

A damning report (PDF) has been published by the U.S. Senate, which carefully describes how a handful of billionaires & millionaires control funding to assorted environmental groups. They, in turn, then make donations to America's two major political parties. Guess which one they fund the most by far?

One scheme, led by the New York-based Park Foundation and California-based Schmidt Family Foundation, provides numerous grants to the New York-based SMF, which serves as the fiscal sponsor for multiple New York groups engaged in this effort, including Water Defense, Frack Action and Artists Against Fracking. During 2011, SMF gave $147,750 to Water Defense. The following year, SMF funneled a $150,000 grant "to support Water Defense" from Schmidt. Notably, Water Defense was founded in 2010 by actor Mark Ruffalo, who has an estimated net worth of $20 million and was listed on Time Magazines' 2011 "People Who Mattered" for his anti-fracking efforts. In 2011, SMF gave Frack Action $324,198, with $150,000 stemming from Schmidt grants to SMF. Ironically, one of the Schmidt grants specified that $100,000 go "to support Frack Action's grassroots campaign fighting for a ban on horizontal hydraulic fracturing".

If you're a Euro Leftie then there's no amount of government meddling that's too much. Such is the case with Jean-Claude Juncker, an EU poster boy, who now is hinting that he wants to control Britain's financial sector.

Ross Douthat's latest column is well worth a read, if even just for historical purposes, to understand how fully Obama & Co. have destroyed the American political system:

Anyone paying attention knows that no such impeachment plan is currently afoot. So taken on its own, the impeachment chatter would simply be an unseemly, un-presidential attempt to raise money and get out the 2014 vote.

But it isn't happening in a vacuum, because even as his team plays the impeachment card with gusto, the president is contemplating -- indeed, all but promising -- an extraordinary abuse of office: the granting of temporary legal status, by executive fiat, to up to half the country's population of illegal immigrants.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird is in hot water with the moral equivalency crowd. Some of the comments on the article provide a glimpse into how confused Modern Leftism has become, equating Hamas to Israel, America, Canada, etc.:

"Terrorist" is just a modern propaganda term for "resistance fighter" or "patriot". Had the term been invented in the 18th century, the leaders of the French Revolution and the Boston Tea Party would have been labeled "terrorists".

So says someone living on stolen First Nation land. From European ranks come a long line of thieves and killers of indigenous peoples.

Baird has no idea what Canadians think, feel or want their government to do. Him and Harper speaking for very few Canadians when it comes to the mess in the Middle East and his gratuitous "We mourn the loss in Gaza" but we fully support it is unbelievably insensitive and unqualified. Canada we have a rogue government, a government that came to power under the in and out scandal and should never have been allowed to remain the government of this country once they admitted to cheating in the 2006 elections. They need to be gone and the sooner the better. They have no clue of how to make things better but they have no problem with making them worse wherever they are.

Mr Baird's comments are completely detached from reality and from the values shared by every single person I know. On my Twitter, I am sick of seeing bodies of Gazan families, especially the dead kids. Cheering on Israel's ongoing massacre of an all-but-defenseless peoples is truly disgusting.

Mark October 27th on your calendar. It's the date of the 2014 Toronto Mayoral Election. The next 86 days leading up to this will provide a textbook example of how a cabal of Left-of-Centre latte sipping talking heads in the Media Party will say anything in an attempt to destroy Rob Ford. Facts won't matter. Fairness won't matter. The only thing that's relevant to these ideologues is to push over the finish line one of their "tax" or "tax even more" candidates.

Case in point is one Edward Keenan, who recently wrote this:

"Is he shameless, or ignorant?"

Well, that's the question once you disregard the carnival funhouse of mayoral misfortune. When you gaze upon the profound lunacy of the crack smoking on video and the police investigation and the blitz tackling of a fellow councillor and the bragging about the all-you-can-eat buffet of marital bliss in his home, and so on and so forth, the only sane question to ask is: What! The! Hell!?!

But if you put those sideshows aside, and focus on his "record" as he's always asking us to do, then you're left to ponder either the soaring heights of his shameless dishonesty or the bedrock-cracking depths of his ignorance.

Keenan is a columnist, not a reporter, so he can opine in any way he wishes. However, given how the proverbial heads of these media pundits are likely to explode should Ford be victorious again, that should be sufficient reason alone for many Torontonians to vote for him!

Lest anyone has forgotten, here is one of the "star" candidates of the Toronto Media Party.

"It must be so awkward having to check whether the dead child is from Gaza or Syria before deciding whether to be morally outraged." -- Mark Lynch, Professor at George Washington University

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Urban Ontario's Poster Boy, Jeffrey Simpson, isn't very happy with Stephen Harper and John Baird these days. He's incredibly annoyed they're standing up against Hamas and Putin ... or something like that:

This new diplomacy is supposed to be based on "principles," the accusation being that previous Canadian foreign policy was not. Rather, foreign policy had been based, Conservatives like to say, on "go along to get along," or a lot of mushy pronouncements lacking purpose or direction, especially the full-throttle defence of Canada's "interests."

Paula Krasiun-Winsel is a young woman in Regina and one of two co-chairs of Canada's Young New Democrats. Her Twitter feed reveals her to be very pro-Palestinian. It is unclear to what degree she was involved in writing this editorial from the "New Democratic Youth of Canada" but her views on Twitter seem to echo the same sentiments.

While one can charitably assume that Ms. Krasiun-Winsel's heart is in the right place, she appears to be very guilty of "First Stage Thinking", so emblematic of all Leftists. What she doesn't realize now, and probably never will, is that her views will ensure that fighting between Israeli and Hamas goes on forever. Douglas Murray, columnist for The Spectator, explains why in this podcast discussion with James Delingpole.

A Vietnamese bride left her husband, Kamloops lawyer Rod McLeod, 7 days after arriving in Canada. Assuming he wasn't mistreating her, should she be immediately kicked out of the country for fraud?

The chief of a British Columbia First Nation with 81 residents earned nearly $1 million last year:

"How, as a socialist, can you not be an anti-Semite?" Adolf Hitler asked his party members in 1920. No one thought it an odd question.

An interesting explanation:

In the late 1990's, BC NDP Premier Glen Clark spearheaded a disastrous "fast ferry" shipbuilding initiative that ended up wasting the taxpayers of the province almost half a billion dollars.

Fast forward to 2014 and we find BC NDP MLA Claire Trevena insisting that new ferries be built by the province's dysfunctional shipbuilding industry:

In May, I introduced the provincial shipbuilding act in the legislature. This legislation allows for the development of a provincial shipbuilding strategy. It would ensure vessels built with public money are built in Canada, and it would assist in building a highly skilled strong workforce through apprenticeships. Unfortunately, the B.C. Liberals have blocked this legislation.

Terry Glavin;

Green Party delegates went into their July 19-20 convention in Fredericton with a leadership-endorsed motion that was specifically intended to lure these disaffected "anti-Zionist" New Democrats.

Big mistake.

Interesting revelations from Alberta's Auditor General:

Former premier Alison Redford's staff listed "false passengers" on government flights in order to block others from flying with her, shows a report from Alberta's Auditor General.

In an internal government report obtained by CBC News, Auditor General Merwan Saher found that Redford's staff entered fake passengers into the government's online booking system and then erased the passengers before printing a final flight manifest.

"We were told by [the premier's] office staff and multiple staff from the Department of Treasury Board and Finance that for certain flights the remaining seats available on the plane were blocked to restrict access to Premier Redford on the aircraft," part of the review states.

"The implications of this practice were that other government employees or elected officials would not have been able to travel on those aircraft."

Update: Charles Adler discusses the scandal with Lorne Gunter.

A quick survey across our country reveals some troubling trends:

• Terry Glavin: The NDP's anti-Israel faction


• Rob Breakenridge: The Calgary "peace" protests are anything but


• Jerry Agar: Hamas & CUPW joined at the hip?


• TTC Employee angrily states on camera, "We will kill the Israel"

Daphne Bramham has provided an excellent preview of what will likely be the main debate in the run-up to this Fall's civic election in Vancouver:

There's no question that the hodgepodge of gardens along CP Rail's Arbutus corridor are charming and no doubt that homeowners prefer gardens and a leafy walkway to trains.

But are Vancouverites willing to pay $100 million for it? Because that's how much Canadian Pacific Railway wants for the 66-foot-wide right-of-way that runs for 11 kilometres from the Fraser River almost to False Creek.
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Consider how generous taxpayers may feel toward one of the city's wealthiest neighbourhoods, a community that already has more green space than most others and where, little more than a decade ago, resident Pamela Sauder declared herself and her neighbours to be Vancouver's "crème de la crème."

Consider that the Vision-dominated council's top priority is ending homelessness. This year, it allocated $16.6 million in its capital budget toward that.

The unfolding hilarity will pit Latte Liberals who have squatted on the CPR land against those demanding more money to fight homelessness. In some cases the same person will be on both sides of the argument! It will fascinating to find out how many of the 4,000+ people who signed a petition to keep the gardens along the tracks as-is will be willing to put their money where their mouths are. A contribution of $5,000 - $10,000 per person would be a good start!

Interesting developments in Australia:

Tony Abbott, Australia's prime minister, has unveiled strict measures to force welfare recipients to work for their benefits, including requiring them to make 40 job applications a month and perform 25 hours a week of community work.

Facing accusations he is demonising the unemployed, Mr Abbott said the expanded "work for the dole" scheme would reduce welfare dependency.

Not everyone is happy!

Is anyone in Stephen Harper's office listening?!?

The Toronto Star has just published an editorial entitled The West wants out. They try to make the argument that most Westerners are adamantly against the energy policies of the federal Tories. If they're correct, then the Liberals and/or NDP will win an abundance of new seats in next year's election.

The question is: Is their analysis correct or absurdly off base?

John Kerry aka Husband of Ms. Heinz aka Mr. Easter Island Statue aka the American Secretary of State is either a naive fool of extreme proportions or playing games while people die. How else would you explain this:

When The Times of Israel's Avi Issacharoff first reported the content of John Kerry's ceasefire proposal on Friday afternoon, I wondered if something had gotten lost in translation. It seemed inconceivable that the American secretary of state would have drafted an initiative that, as a priority, did not require the dismantling of Hamas's rocket arsenal and network of tunnels dug under the Israeli border. Yet the reported text did not address these issues at all, nor call for the demilitarization of Gaza.

Most residents of Metro Vancouver have generally been aware that the workers at the Richmond IKEA store have been on strike for well over a year now. The union is ecstatic over a recent decision by the B.C. Labour Relations Board.

In the bigger picture, one wonders why any of these union members would ever want to work for IKEA in the future, given that they frequently and vehemently remind us what a horrific company it is. Given IKEA's tremendous success, most consumers don't view the company this way, but it clearly appears to be the impression of the locked out workers. Why would any of them agree to working for such a "terrible" company in the future?

A common talking point amongst Leftists is "diversity". Diversity, diversity, diversity - they constantly remind us all that every lifestyle and viewpoint in society must be accepted. Though when a group of Rob Ford supporters got together in a Toronto park yesterday, suddenly all cries for diversity fell silent as a horde of Leftists deliberately tried to disrupt the event. Here's the Facebook page they used to silence the freedoms of others.

In this video of the event, notice how the LGBT activists appear to target Black Canadians. Perhaps the MSM should ask this group why they believe minorities in Canada shouldn't have the same rights to Freedom of Assembly as others.

In her endless thirst to confiscate more money from taxpayers, Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne is planning on a tax increase for air travelers in her province:

The fuel tax, currently at 2.7 cents per litre, will jump to 6.7 cents by 2017, under Ontario's budget proposal -- an "unbelievably punitive" hike according to Ben Smith, Air Canada's chief commercial officer. Smith isn't wrong. Airlines, which continue as barely profitable in 2014, operate on the tightest of margins. The hike is expected to cost Air Canada alone more than $50-million next year. To put this figure into context, the airline generated just $50-million in net profit in 2012.

So news of Ontario's fuel tax hike is sure to set hearts aflutter at U.S. border airports. The tax increase is expected to direct an additional 300,000 to 400,000 Canadian passengers to U.S. airports, according to Canada's National Airlines Council. This will do serious damage to Canada's airports, critical generators of job growth, and thus the Canadian economy overall.

h/t Peter J.

Yesterday in Darby, Pennsylvania, Dr. Lee Silverman used a handgun to protect himself and others from a psychiatric patient who went on a shooting spree. Deemed as a hero by some, the doctor may be at risk of losing his job:

According to the Mercy Health System's Code of Conduct, "Employees are prohibited from bringing firearms or explosives of any kind into the workplace." If, indeed, an armed doctor shot the killer, he faces the loss of his job and his license to practice medicine.

h/t Black Mamba

Canada's Foreign Minister John Baird had some most interesting things to say to Mark Levin. Given the choice of supporting a liberal democracy or an international terrorist organization, which would you choose? According to Leftist doctrine, they're morally equivalent.

h/t John & Revnant Dream

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