Category Archives: American Politics

Jan 17

Thoughts on the Republican Presidential Nomination


As a political junkie, I’ve been following the Republican Presidential nomination process for about half a year now.  It has been interesting to watch the non-Romney’s rise and fall in the polls. Personally if I had to pick a candidate according to his credentials and not his campaign, Rick Perry would be my choice.  On paper his achievements look great as he is a strong social and fiscal conservative.  However, his place on the bottom of the polls and his many gaffes on the campaign, most recently his attacks on Romney for Bain, means I am no longer a supporter.  Perry needs to wake up and realize he is going nowhere and endorse Santorum as the non-Romney in order to have  a strong social conservative as nominee.  If  I had to vote in South Carolina on Saturday, I would probably vote for Rick Santorum, a candidate very strong on social issues.  Even though Santorum won’t end up the nominee, as a political junkie I would like the race to go on and not end in SC.  A Romney-Santorum battle would be very interesting to watch.  Ron Paul, despite his strong finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, is not a serious candidate and seems to be running just to annoy Republicans.  Newt Gingrich, the man who’s had three wives, is the candidate I dislike the most.  The more I learn about him, the more I dislike him. If the contest ends up being him and Romney after South Carolina, I will wholeheartedly support Romney, the man, who I predict, will be president-elect in a year.

As a Canadian my support and opinion doesn’t matter in the least, but I still like to follow American politics, which will end up impacting Canada in the long run.

Dec 26

2009 in News & Politics


A lot of different newsgroups and pundits have been doing this and I’d thought I’d contribute the best, the worst and other award winners in various positive and negative categories for the year 2009. 

The most successful politician:  Stephen Harper was the politician that had the most influence on the news and he was the one that contributed the most to the increase of Conservative support.  He went from a government that was about to collapse to one that is holding strong despite the minority status.

The most disappointing Canadian politician:  Michael Ignatieff (Iggy) was supposed to inspire the Liberals and lead them on the path to victory instead he lead them to one of their lowest levels of support, ever.  His uncarried through threat of an election further discredits him.   Just to clarify, it’s Liberals not me, who are disappointed.

The most disappointing American politician: Barack Obama was ingurated in January with high levels of support and a media that fawned over him.  He has failed to bring what was expected and currently has one of the lowest approval ratings for the first year on presidency since the ratings began.

 The rising politician: Jason Kenney, the minister of immigration is a rising star in the Conservative caucus.  He has shown how he can do his job well and is helping the Conservatives steer Canada to the right, most recently with the new citizenship guide. 

The most over-emphasized news story: The H1N1 flu (swine flu). This major pandemic ended up being nothing to out of the ordinary despite the media hype and intense spending of taxpayer dollars. 

The most suprising political appointment:  Gary Doer, the NDP Manitoba premier, was appointed by Stephen Harper, the Conservative PM, to be our ambassador to the United States.  I guess this shows Harper is not totally partisan.

The sports story of the year: Jim Balsille’s attempt to bring an NHL team to Southern Ontario.  Despite the final failure, Hamilton came really close to finally having an NHL team.

The news story with the best ending: The miracle on the Hudson.  Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III piloted the Airbus he has flying onto a save landing on the Hudson River after the plane went down after takeoff.  155 lives were saved. 

The most popular food in the news:  Seal meat has become popular this year.  In the wake of the European Union ban on seal products, the Canadians have protested by eating seal meat.  The Governor General was the first to try the delicacy.  A little while latter, the PM and his cabinet had a try.  Now they are starting to serve it at the parliamentary cafeteria. 

I found it a bit humourous to look at my predictions from the beginning of the year, as you can see I had some right and some wrong.

May 2

Weekly Wrap-Up April 26- May 2


Apr 1

GM-Wagoner Steps Down


Recently, GM’s CEO, Rick Wagoner stepped down from his position after being asked to resign by the White House.  Obama continues to give financial aid to GM as it has financial difficulty. Obama is going to announce a plan to aid the 2 major automakers, Chrysler and General Motors. Many people are disappointed when he stepped down because he was a big contribution to the company.

Mar 15

Weekly Wrap-Up March 8-14


  • This week Obama signed an executive order that allowed embryonic stem cell research.  However two days later he banned Federal stem cell research.  this is good news because it does not allow Federal research on human beings.  See link below:

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=44943

  • $65 billion swindler, Bernard Madoff, started his prison life this week.  He pleaded guilty to 11 charges of fraud.  He was sentenced to jail to wait till his trail because the judge was afraid he would try to escape if put on bail.   He will probably be sentenced to 3 life sentences or 150 years in jail.  The swindled are not happy with this plead of guilty because it does not make him reveal who he swindled and how much.  Needless to say, he will be if jail for the rest of his life.
  • Some good news: The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal  is losing some of its abusive strength.  See link below:

http://ezralevant.com/2009/03/human-rights-tribunal-richard.html

  • Two of my friends started blogs this week:

http://esthermaria-modestproposals.blogspot.com/

http://moments-chris.blogspot.com/

    Feb 22

    Weekly Wrap Up


    • This week I was not very kind to evolutionists. See posts below. This is because I could not stand some of the articles they wrote.  Of course the Spec didn’t (at least so far) publish my response which you can see in the post below.
    • Obama came to Canada this week.  Most of the nation seemed to go crazy.  Such a shame, he is a human.  Apparently the Washington White House Press Gallery gave a standing ovation to Harper’s speech.  All of them but the three Canadians. Here is an excerpt from Wolf Blitzer interviewing the Canadian reporter.

      • When the Canadian leader finished, something very rare happened in the White House media room. Almost every member of the working media stood up and gave this foreign leader an ovation that lasted for several minutes. What stood out for some, was the small handful of reporters who stayed in their seats. One of them looked embarrassed. Another appeared to be angry. The third had a disgusted look on her face. When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewed the three Canadians, they appeared to be offended by the idea that a Canadian leader would speak in such glowing terms about the United States.

      The reporter for Canada’s national public broadcaster, known as the CBC said, “In our country there has always been widespread suspicion that the leaders of the Conservative party who hails from an ultra right-wing part of the country has too much affection for the United States and too little for Canada. Today, he seems to have confirmed that view with his words.” Wolf Blitzer then challenged the Canadian journalist by saying, “But didn’t Barack Obama in his very first visit to Canada as president more than three years ago, say at a news conference in Ottawa that he loved Canada?” The CBC reporter then let Blitzer have it right between the eyes. “That’s not the same thing at all Wolf. It’s a difference with a distinction. In Canada we all want the United States to know more about us and to respect us. President Obama appealed to our fondest hopes when he said he loved Canada. But the worst fear that Canadians have is that their government will fall into the hands of a leader who feels greater kinship toward the United States than he does for Canada and today Prime Minister Harper seemed to be completely over the top by not only saying he loved the United States, but that he also felt that the United States was a beacon of freedom for the world, and Canadians know that isn’t true. The United States is seen as an oppressor in many parts of the world. The United States is an ally of Israel which many see as an apartheid state in the Middle East. The United States has also been seen by some as trying to export a kind of militant Christianity, and the United States is also seen as a country that has practiced genocide in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War and more recently in Iraq. And I haven’t even brought up Abu Ghraib or Maher Arar or Omar Khadr or Gitmo or Waterboarding. Wolf, the truth is that we at the CBC are in touch with precisely how the average Canadian feels about the United States. We need them to buy our stuff. But we don’t want to be associated with their ideological baggage. We are embarrassed by United States policies on race, on war, on torture, and on civil liberties. Am I making myself clear as a bell on why I sat while the rest of you stood and applauded that man for saluting your country as a beacon of freedom?”
      Blitzer than offered the CBC reporter an uncharacteristic dress down. “Susan, I have never heard so much nonsense in my life from a so-called Canadian journalist. I grew up in Buffalo, only minutes from the Canadian border. I spent a lot of time in your country, and have many friends there. I don’t know who you think you are speaking for. But I must assume based on this propaganda that you are mouthing, that you’re either speaking only for yourself or for a small group of people on the far left of the spectrum. I can now see why you were not happy with the Prime Minister’s remarks. He represents a mainstream view and what you seem to represent borders on irrelevant. None of us in journalism want to feel irrelevant. But we make a choice every day between following the facts and following our agendas. I want to thank you for sharing with our viewers very candidly on the choice that you and some of your Canadian colleagues choose to take. I want you to know that I too love Canada. We have a very loyal audience in Canada. We get lots of email from Canada and Susan, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them tell me in the next couple of hours that I love Canada more than you do.”1.

    That’s all I’ll post for this week.  If you want some more, here’s some links.

    1.http://www.cjob.com/Blog/StationShared/Blog/OnTheEdge/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10023140

    Feb 4

    News Bytes- 03/02/09


    This is another new section.  It will contain different links to bytes or sites of news and other things that are interesting.

    Released detainees from Gitimo coming to Canada?

    Watch CTV’s new show replacing Mike Duffy: Power Play with Tom Clark

    Obama Admits ‘Mistake’ in Handling of Daschle Nomination

    Understanding the Minnesota Senator Happenings

    Some amazing photos

    Feb 1

    Weekly Wrap-Up- January 25-31


    This is a new section I want to start.  Weekly wrap-up will consist of commentaries on a few events that happened in the last week.  It will happen, if possible, every Saturday.   So here it goes:

    • The budget was released on Wednesday.  Overall I think the budget is good for the time of recession but has strayed to far to the left.  Iggy & Co.  supported it ……for now.  For more on the budget, see my previous post.
    • Blago is done.  Rod Blagojevich, the former Governor of Illinois was impeached on Thursday because he tired to sell Obama’s senate seat among things.  The Illinois Senate voted unanimously both to impeach him and also ban him from public office.  What Blago did was bizarre, he didn’t attend his trial till the last day, to plead for his office.  Instead, he went to all the different media outlets (he skipped the O’Rielly Factor though, Bill O’Reilly would have had him for dinner)  to plead for people to have pity on him.  If you don’t want to be impeached it might be a good idea to attend the trial, not try to get the public to feel sorry for you, they are not the ones who can impeach you.  Next up this man gets a criminal trail.  He cannot boycott this one.  Hopefully this liar gets sent to the cooler.
    • There has been a fury of patriotism in Canada.  Recently, a parent that sent her child to a school in New Brunswick, realized that hey did not and were not allowed to sing the anthem at their school, she brought this to the media and, voila, a news story and controversy has arisen.  Should the anthem be sung at school? Here’s a link to the news article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090131.wanthem31/BNStory/National/home. I think that there should be a law that legislates that all schools must play the national anthem each morning.  If you live in Canada, you should be able/have to to sing the national anthem.  If you are offended that the anthem mentions God, then leave the country, after all Canada was built on Christian principles.  By the way, the principal that banned the anthem was a candidate for the Green Party in the last election, that might explain things. 🙂
    • Also this week Obama suddenly decided that he had Muslim roots, His first interview as president was not to an American network but to a Muslim station.  All during the election Barak Hussein Obama denied that he was Muslim. Now, after the election, he decides he is, sort of.  For more information and opinion see this article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/NP_Top_Stories/~3/525489804/steven-edwards-suddenly-obama-has-muslim-roots.aspx

    That’s all for this week.

    Jan 21

    OBAMA IS PRESIDENT


    Like it or not, America has a new president.  Barack H. Obama is know president of the US of A.  We will have to see what comes next now that dreamland is replaced with reality.  Will be sign the Federal Freedom of Choice Act?  Hopefully not.  Will he be beneficial to Canada? We will have to see.  Will his approval ratings go down over time? Probably.  Will he be the best President the US has ever had? Maybe… but right know it seems not.   All these questions and more will be answered over time.  We will have to see what happens. 

    We have to remember:

    Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

    (Romans 13:1-4)