Category Politics

Pressing The Flesh

Democrats go to the polls today in New Hampshire as that state holds its presidential primary. After last week’s Iowa caucus fiasco, the party is desperate to get things right. I’m not a fan of the primary system, for reasons to numerous to detail here, but I understand why the New Hampshire vote has traditionally […]

Is It Over?

  I did the unthinkable. I’m a political junkie, but I watched not a minute of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, Nor have I read any news articles on it, though I have seen the headlines. It seemed like such a pointless procedure that I couldn’t be bothered. Given that the outcome was pre-ordained, I didn’t […]

Send In The Clowns

If Donald Trump hasn’t tweeted that, just wait for it. These guys want to run a country? More than 12 hours after results should have been made official, no-one knows who won Tuesday’s Democratic Party Iowa caucuses. The CNN headline described it as “chaos and confusion.” I won’t launch into a list of what went […]

Long And Winding Road

It may have been the centre of the political universe, but I would be hard-pressed to find Iowa on a map. I wonder if Americans have the same problem? Once every four years the state makes headlines, as politically interested individual “caucus” to determine who they want to be president. For some candidates it is […]

Integrity Versus Elect-ability

  It was hardly a secret, but it became official on the weekend: Peter MacKay is running for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. He seems likely to win – and I can’t think of a worse choice. It appears the party is confronted with a simple choice: integrity or elect-ability. McKay may […]

Revisiting Trump

I’ve been doing some “housecleaning” on my phone and found today’s post, which I had written to post around before Donald Trump’s election in November 2016, then an addendum to go with his January 2017 inauguration. It is a topic I explored in a book review last year, but I figured as Trump enters the […]

American Dreams

It has crept up quickly almost without my noticing – it is a presidential election year in the United States. Four years of Donald Trump has rushed by. Not that it has really been four years. With all the publicity surrounding the Trump impeachment process, it seems no-one is paying much attention to the upcoming […]

Impeaching Donald Trump

It doesn’t get much sadder. The United States has devolved into a cartoon democracy. The House of Representatives will vote this week on two articles of impeachment. With the vote expected to follow party lines, a Senate trial is a certainty. Certain also is his acquittal, as the Republicans control the Senate. The entire thing […]

Stepping Down

Andrew Scheer resigned as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada Thursday, the same day I received this Christmas card from him. I guess he remebers me from when I worked on Parliament Hill. He really had no choice. After the October election Scheer said he was staying on the job and would fight the next […]

Breaking With Tradition

I was rather curious as to how Canada’s Parliament was going to handle its opening Thursday, as for the first time in more than 150 years the Senate and the House of Commons are meeting in different buildings. Traditionally the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod has walked to the Commons Chamber from the Senate […]