Tom Hartmann

 — Is changing the Democratic Party the way to remake our Democracy? Donald Trump only got about a million more votes than he did in 2020, but Kamala Harris appears to have received somewhere between 6 and 10 million fewer votes than Joe Biden did that year. For the over two decades that I’ve been writing and on the radio and TV, I’ve argued that when Bill Clinton embraced Reagan’s neoliberalism in 1992 (and Obama maintained that position) the Democratic Party had taken a fatal turn to the right. I’ve written two books that cover it, in part, as well: The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America and The Hidden History of the American Dream. It appears that millions of voters essentially said, “I’m not going to vote for that nutcase Trump, but Harris isn’t speaking to the explosion in my cost-of-living expenses so to hell with her, too.” Joe Biden campaigned with Bernie Sanders and won; Kamala Harris campaigned with Liz Cheney and repeatedly said she wanted to give Republicans “a seat at the table,” which may well have been a fatal error. She thought she could pick up moderate Republicans, but there’s apparently not such a thing anymore since Fox “News” and the massive rightwing media ecosystem has come to dominate the American news and opinion landscape. Bernie Sanders, Robert Reich, Sherrod Brown, and many other longtime Democrats have been pointing to this pre-1992 truth: if the Democratic Party is to win, it has to go back to its FDR/LBJ roots and become the party of the bottom 90 percent, instead of embracing those with a college education, movie and rock stars, and progressive billionaires like Mark Cuban. God bless them all, but Dems really need to reinvent themselves as the blue-collar party and repudiate much of the Clinton/Obama agenda of low taxes, free trade, and private/public partnerships (like Obamacare). Amazingly, even The New York Times’ conservative columnist David Brooks agrees, writing: “The Democratic Party has one job: to combat inequality. Here was a great chasm of inequality right before their noses and somehow many Democrats didn’t see it. Many on the left focused on racial inequality, gender inequality and L.G.B.T.Q. inequality. [This is actually an untrue GOP talking point.] … As the left veered toward identitarian performance art, Donald Trump jumped into the class war with both feet. His Queens-born resentment of the Manhattan elites dovetailed magically with the class animosity being felt by rural people across the country. His message was simple: These people have betrayed you, and they are morons to boot.” Amen. Finally, check out this troubling article from data scientist Stephen Spoonamore raising questions about manipulation of vote totals in the swing states in a way that doesn’t appear in the non-swing states. I’m agnostic on this for the moment, but it’s worth reading; he’ll be on my program Monday.

— In an authoritarian regime it’s important to cow and control the news, and here we go. Kash Patel, widely rumored to be Trump’s main pick for FBI director, has a message for reporters and opinion writers who insist on continuing to call Trump a fascist or otherwise slander/defame him and his followers: “We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections – we’re going to come after you... Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.” According to The Columbia Journalism Review, Trump has already sued The New York Times (naming reporters Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner) and Penguin Random House (one of my publishers) and CBS’s 60 Minutes show for $10 billion each. As I predicted, he appears to be following the Putin/Orbán strategy of bankrupting media outlets and reporters (rather than using cops and billy-clubs), presumably both to cow others into submission and to make the media properties available to be purchased by his allies (sort of like what just happened with The Onion buying Infowars out of bankruptcy). Steve Bannon added his thoughts, essentially threatening or warning the journalists at MSNBC: “Weissman, you were on TV with MSNBC and all the producers, MSNBC. Preserve your documents. Ari Melber and all you hosts. Preserve your documents. All of it. You better be worried. You better lawyer up. Some of you young producers, you better call mom and dad tonight. Mom and dad, ‘You know a good lawyer?’ Lawyer up. Lawyer up.” This is a dangerous time for anybody writing about politics. Orbán and Putin even go after random citizens who criticize them on social media; will Trump go that far? And will progressives shut up in the face of this kind of intimidation? Stay tuned…

— Speaking of authoritarianism, Texas Republicans want to outlaw websites that discuss how to get an abortion. Jessica Valenti tells the story at Abortion, Every Day on Substack about the Republican lawmakers in Texas (and around the country) who are trying to pass legislation that would imprison people who put up websites that can be viewed in Texas (including hers) with information on abortion. They argue that abortion information is not free speech protected by the Constitution. I’d add that if the Comstock Act is enforced by the new Attorney General (as JD Vance has demanded) next year, all sorts of information about abortion will become criminalized, in addition to the devices and drugs that can be used for both abortion and birth control.

— Sarah Hurst’s Russia Report on Tulsi Gabbard will make your toes curl. I’ll let you click on it and read it yourself; it’s all about her repeated embraces of Russia and Putin. Which makes some people wonder out loud why Trump would push such objectionable candidates; surely the Senate will protect us from such people, right? But if Trump really wants to pull a Hitler and seize absolute control of the nation within a matter of a few months, his first move would be to either negotiate or force a recess of the Senate and simply “recess appoint” all of his cabinet nominees. No hearings, no tough questions, no FBI or other background checks, no Democratic politicians’ input. He has this authority under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution: if there’s a disagreement between John Thune and Mike Johnson about when to adjourn, “...and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he [the president] may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper.” They could agree to disagree; that way they could both evade responsibility. On the other hand, if Thune simply gives in to Trump’s recent demand for recess appointments (as he told reporters yesterday he was considering), Thune can simply adjourn the Senate, something that hasn’t happened in decades; Trump can then simply do his own recess appointments (it could be done in a single hour) under the Constitution’s provision: “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.” or he could just appoint them as “acting“ officials. He did that during the last year of his presidency, and went way beyond the legal time limit for several; he flagrantly broke the law last time with over 15 cabinet members and Republicans were unwilling to call him on it, although he never started that way. This will be our first clue that the nation is no longer a constitutional republic with anything resembling checks and balances, but has become an oligarchic dictatorship like Hungary.

— Blueprint of destruction: Is Trump following Orbán’s and Putin’s road to power? M. Gessen, an expert on authoritarianism, writes in The New York Times: “When Orban was re-elected, he carried out what Magyar calls an ‘autocratic breakthrough,’ changing laws and practices so that he could not be dislodged again. It helped that he had a supermajority in parliament. Trump, similarly, spent four years attacking the Biden administration, and the vote that brought it to the White House, as fraudulent, and positioning himself as the only true voice of the people. He is also returning with a power trifecta — the presidency and both houses of Congress. He too can quickly reshape American government in his image. … Kamala Harris’s campaign, of course, tried to warn Americans about this and a lot more, labeling Trump a fascist. … It’s not just what the autocrats do to stage their breakthrough, it’s how they do it: passing legislation (or signing executive orders) fast, without any discussion, sometimes late at night, in batches, all the while denigrating and delegitimizing any opposition.” The article is definitely worth a read, chilling as it is. Gessen even gets into the role of Project 2025 in facilitating the transformation of our American form of government into one with a single strongman president at its pinnacle. This does not bode well for America.

— Former Trump administration officials who turned on him are preparing to flee the country. The Washington Post is reporting: “A retired U.S. Army officer who clashed with senior officials in Donald Trump’s first White House looked into acquiring Italian citizenship in the run-up to this month’s election but wasn’t eligible and instead packed a ‘go bag’ with cash and a list of emergency numbers in case he needs to flee. A member of Trump’s first administration who publicly denounced him is applying for foreign citizenship and weighing whether to watch and wait or leave the country before the Jan. 20 inauguration. And a former U.S. official who signed a notorious October 2020 letter suggesting that emails purportedly taken from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden could be part of a ‘Russian information operation’is seeking a passport from a European country, uncertain about whether the getaway will prove necessary but concluding, ‘You don’t want to have to scramble.’” Reports (like this one from the Post) suggest that Trump has an “enemies list” of at least 600 people, much like Nixon’s, and he intends to go after everybody on the list on day one. Will he, like Nixon, just harass people with IRS audits? It seems more likely based on his own words that he’ll launch criminal and civil actions to jail or bankrupt his perceived enemies and those who have written or said things that have offended him. Along those same lines, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wants “justice” against health officials: “Dr. [Anthony] Fauci lied to the American people, abusing his power and position and role, a very powerful role paid for by the American tax people. He lied, and many, many people died. … People that perpetuated and continue to perpetuate these crimes need to be prosecuted, and that needs to be starting in the next administration, and I’m pretty sure our next attorney general will do that, and I look forward to seeing that happen.” Washington, DC is very, very much on edge right now; I got a call Friday morning at 5:30 in the morning from the CEO of a major DC-based progressive media outlet who’d just gotten off the phone with a Clinton colleague; both are considering leaving the country. This is getting real very, very fast.

— Are Republicans coming for healthcare for both retired and working people?Millions of people signed up for Affordable Care Act insurance policies over the past three years because of hefty subsidies contained in Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Those subsidies expire at the end of this year, and Republicans are signaling that they won’t be renewed, meaning that premiums could go from $200 a month to as much as $2400 a month. Meanwhile, Project 2025 has called for private corporate Medicare Advantage plans to become the default option for people turning 65 and signing up for Medicare. Once a critical threshold is hit (currently more than half of seniors are on the Advantage plans) it’ll be fairly easy for a Republican congress and president to end legacy Medicare; once that happens, Advantage plans, no longer having competition from real Medicare, will almost certainly become more expensive and offer less coverage. Meanwhile, Raw Story is reporting: “Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), chairman of the House Budget Committee, told reporters earlier this week that the GOP is looking to use the filibuster-evading reconciliation process to pursue cuts to ‘mandatory programs’—a category that includes Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.” Republicans have been talking about this since the ReaganRevolution, but never actually tried (other than Reagan raising the retirement age from 65 to 67). Get ready.

— State-level authoritarians fall in line with Trump. Oklahoma’s Channel 4 (KFOR) TV News reports: “Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters emailed leaders in Oklahoma school districts on Thursday telling them they would be required to play their students and parents a video showing Walters blaming the ‘radical left’ and ‘woke teachers unions’ for ‘attacking’ religious liberty, then inviting students to join him as he prays for President-elect Donald Trump.” Walters also reportedly purchased five hundred Trump Bibles for Oklahoma schools. Welcome to the Brave New World. Compounding a religious grift with a financial one; breathtaking.

"It's Legalized CORRUPTION And It's Unacceptable"

 

US adults are getting worse at reading and math

Luis Alvarez/Getty Images

Americans are increasingly flustered by words and numbers, according to a test that measures adult literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving skills in 31 industrialized countries. The report card revealed an expanding gap between the most and least adept Americans in their ability to handle everyday tasks—from calculating an average to understanding a government email. See me after class The 2023 assessment of 4,600 US adults showed: The share of Americans scoring at the lowest level (1 out of 5) or below in literacy rose to 28% from 19% in 2017. And 34% scored at the lowest numeracy level or below, compared to 29% six years prior. That means that over a quarter of Americans can reliably gauge info only from a simple text, while more than a third might struggle to perform tasks beyond basic arithmetic. But the decline wasn’t even: The 90th percentile score didn’t drop for literacy and numeracy but the 10th percentile score for both decreased. The US isn’t alone: Average literacy and numeracy scores dropped in 20 and 11 countries, respectively, which some researchers blame on less reading and more scrolling, though some of it could be due to aging populations and language difficulties stemming from increased immigration. Finland ranked No. 1 in both literacy and numeracy, while sharing first place with Japan in problem-solving.—SK

BlueTriton — formerly Nestlé — closing Ontario operations

 

By Fatima Syed

Nov. 13, 2024  4 min. read

Since 2021, BlueTriton has operated a facility in Guelph, Ont., and two wells in the Town of Erin and Wellington County to collect groundwater to bottle and sell.

Photo illustration: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

BlueTriton, a water bottling company formerly known as Nestlé Waters North America, is ending its operations in Ontario. 

Since 2007, the U.S. based-company has operated a facility in Guelph, Ont., and two wells in the Town of Erin and Wellington County, where it collects groundwater to bottle and sell. In 2017, the former Ontario Liberal government imposed a moratorium on new permits to take water for bottling, in order to study its impacts on the environment and quantity of water available for other users. The province allowed Nestlé to continue extracting up to 4.7 million litres of water a day from the two wells. Over a week, that would fill 13 Olympic swimming pools.

In 2021, Nestlé sold its North American water divisions to venture capitalists that renamed the business BlueTriton. A day after the name change was announced, the Doug Ford government lifted a moratorium on new permits for water extraction for bottling, saying the province’s studies concluded water taking did not adversely impact the environment or other users. In lifting the moratorium, it introduced new regulations, including a need for municipalities to approve new permits to take more than 379,000 litres of water per day. 

This did not, however, apply to BlueTriton as a few months later, in November 2021, the province granted BlueTriton a five-year renewal on Nestlé’s permits.

The company is leaving Ontario before its permit expires. “We have initiated a public sale process for our Guelph facility and will wind down our operations in Ontario by the end of January,” Carrie Ratner, a spokesperson for BlueTriton, told The Narwhal in an email. 

Ratner did not specify the reasons behind this move. 

BlueTriton, and Nestlé previously, faced significant and persistent opposition from residents in Guelph and surrounding areas, who are celebrating the company’s exit from Ontario. The company operates in the traditional territory of Six Nations of the Grand River, where water insecurity is severe, with just one aquifer to draw from, and residents often have to purchase clean drinking water due to boil advisories. Read More

Already, a Revolt Within Rustad’s Party

 That was fast. Less than a month after Conservative Party of British Columbia MLAs were sworn in, leader John Rustad is facing a caucus rebellion.

It’s not surprising the new Conservative MLAs, many with a deep distrust of all authority, would turn on their own leader.

But this seems a clear warning to Rustad and other Conservative MLAs that a significant faction in caucus is ready to pounce on any deviation from their definition of conservative values.

CKNW’s Jas Johal broke the news that 13 MLAs had written a sharp letter accusing Elenore Sturko, the party’s public safety critic, of betraying Conservative principles around free speech and “cancel culture.”

The MLAs — almost a third of caucus, all without legislature experience — were “dismayed” that Sturko had said the Vancouver Police Board was right to accept the resignation of vice-chair Comfort Sakoma-Fadugba. Read More

Amazon joins Meta in donating $1 million to Trump inauguration

Amazon joins Meta in donating $1 million to Trump inauguration

Amazon.com is planning a $1 million donation to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, as founder Jeff Bezos and other tech leaders shore up ties with the incoming administration, according to WSJ reporting.

Space Force is having companies like Astranis build GPS

The U.S. Air Force began deploying the Global Positioning System — more commonly known as GPS — nearly 50 years ago, satellites which have become critical infrastructure for both the military and the economy. Since then, GPS is estimated to have generated more than $1.4 trillion in economic benefits, according to a Commerce Department study. But the agency warned that an “outage could potentially have an economic impact of $1 billion a day.” Pentagon leaders believe those losses are a conservative estimate, leading the U.S. Space Force to kick off a roughly $2 billion satellite program known as the Resilient Global Positioning System. Called R-GPS for short, the program is intended to provide an alternative, backup network for the current satellite system. ″[GPS is] vitally important to everything we do day-to-day, from the stock market, for timing of every transaction, to the crops we field,” Lt. Col. Justin Deifel, leader of R-GPS at the Space Force’s Space Systems Command, told CNBC. “It’s like water and electricity. … It’s a utility of the economy and a utility of a warfighter that we need to make sure is available,” Deifel added.

Nenshi Has Wanted to Run in Edmonton. Notley Just Made It Possible

Nenshi Has Wanted to Run in Edmonton. Notley Just Made It Possible

After languishing for the past six months in the role of Opposition leader without a legislative seat, Nenshi appears poised to run in a yet-to-be called byelection in Edmonton-Strathcona.

Yes, that’s the seat held by former NDP leader Rachel Notley who announced this morning she’d resign her seat Dec. 30.

No, as I write this Nenshi has not confirmed he will run to succeed Notley. But it’s just a matter of time.

Canada's Conservative leaders break the bank while preaching prudence

“Fix the budget.” It’s one of Pierre Poilievre’s patented “verb-the-noun” formulations for what he’d do as Canada’s next prime minister, and it remains an article of faith among many conservatives in Canada. But like most acts of faith, this is far more about belief than reality. For all their talk about being fiscally prudent, Conservative politicians in Canada have more or less abandoned the idea of balancing the budget. Take Ontario’s Doug Ford, whose government has added $86 billion to the province’s debt since it was first elected in 2018. Even if you strip out the debt associated with COVID-19, his government has still added $66.5 billion to the provincial debt, which is $22.5 billion more than Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals during their five years in power. Even conservative think tanks are getting nervous: as the Fraser Institute noted earlier this year, Ford’s government has overseen the second- and third-highest years of per-person (inflation-adjusted) spending in Ontario’s history. “At every turn,” Jake Fuss and Grady Munro wrote, “the Ford government has demonstrated that it’s an irresponsible steward of Ontario’s finances.” As if to really prove that point, the Ford government recently decided to spend $48 million ripping up bike lanes in Toronto in order to deliver what city staff describe as “minor” improvements in traffic. It also dedicated $100 million to a new program that will bring SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet system to 15,000 households and businesses in rural Ontario at a per-unit cost of more than $6,600. “The province will cover equipment and installation costs, but not monthly fees,” the Globe and Mail noted.

Alberta kept oil a secret for 3 years

 At least 16 fossil fuel companies operating in Canada’s oilsands allegedly broke rules requiring them to pay for environmental monitoring by independent scientists, according to newly released data from the Alberta government.

Alberta’s Environment and Protected Areas Ministry released the data to The Narwhal in November, about a month after the government lost a three-year battle to keep the names of 16 oilsands companies secret.

The companies paid financial penalties for allegedly flouting rules surrounding a joint Canada-Alberta scientific monitoring program, according to the newly released data. Federal and provincial officials introduced the program in 2012 to measure the cumulative effects of oilsands development on air, water, land and biodiversity.

The names of companies with late or unpaid fees include firms that wound up under bankruptcy protection or had their operations shut down for serious environmental infractions, such as Everest Canadian Resources and Sunshine Oilsands. They also include some larger multinational companies, including Koch, Imperial Oil, ConocoPhillips and MEG Energy, which faced fines for paying fees late.

For some critics, the late and unpaid fees cast doubt on how seriously Premier Danielle Smith’s government is taking its responsibility to manage the monitoring program.

Shannon Phillips was the environment minister in the former NDP government during a period when some of the fees went unpaid. She said she asked public servants to use all the tools of the government to collect the money after they informed her about the problem.

But she noted there was an internal government culture to cut the industry some slack.

“The default setting was to lay down and die in the face of corporate whining and tantrums,” she said. “But the public service knew that might not be the response if they brought me a problem to solve.”   

Read More

Far Right is evolving and growing in Canada

 In early 2022, thousands of Canadians descended on Ottawa as part of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” in protest of the government’s pandemic-related restrictions. Many were opposed to the government’s power to impose lockdowns, masking and vaccine mandates.

Wittingly or not, they were also taking part in a vast communications effort from various groups and individuals on the far right.

Our new book on the far right in Canada, The Great Right North, shows that events like the Freedom Convoy are representative of where the far right is going, how it is recruiting, how it is communicating internally and with Canadians at large, and how it is progressing in the national political discourse.

Historically, Canada has always had a few active far-right groups, including the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and Nazis and fascists before the Second World War.

It also saw various semi-successful attempts at federating smaller formations during the 1980s and, in the 1990s, under the umbrella of the Heritage Front, which turned out to be co-founded and led by a CSIS operative.

But that was then. Now, the far right has a different strategy.

Canadian MP DESTROYS Trump in FLOOR SPEECH

Banning Iinternational Medical Students 2026

Scapegoating international medical students won’t solve Ontario’s health-care crisis By: Dat Nguyen. The news that Ontario will no longer allow international students to study medicine in the province starting in 2026 struck me profoundly as someone who recently immigrated to Canada with the hope of becoming a doctor. Pursuing a medical education is challenging enough, but the obstacles are especially daunting for international students. I understand this firsthand, having had to make the difficult choice to delay my medical school application until I could secure permanent residency. Canada already offers limited opportunities for foreign nationals who aspire to become doctors –in fact, the number of international students admitted to medical schools nationwide each year is so small it could be counted on two hands. So, scapegoating foreign nationals is not a solution to Ontario's health-care challenges but rather a tactic to distract from the provincial government’s neglect of long-term investment in medical care and education. Premier Doug Ford’s decision is deeply offensive and devoid of any substantial policy justification. It exploits the frustrations of Ontarians with the province’s health-care system, using a divisive, populist narrative. If such nativist political gestures go unchecked, they threaten to erode Canada’s long-standing values of acceptance and inclusion. Ford should reconsider this divisive policy and instead invest in solutions that address the real problems in our health-care system, such as the shortage of family doctors, the lack of medical education funding and long hospital wait times. Our future as a province should be unity and growth, not exclusion and division. Having chosen Canada after more than a decade of commitment to the United States, I can offer insight into the motivations of other international students seeking medical education in this country. My journey began at 15, leaving my home country of Vietnam to pursue my dream of becoming a doctor. During my 12 years in the U.S. — from high school through a bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s from Johns Hopkins University – I encountered racial prejudice and discrimination, which intensified as the U.S. embraced Trumpian ideologies. With the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021, marking a painful turning point, I chose to leave America, seeking a country that values tolerance and inclusion even though I knew this decision came with professional sacrifices. As of October 2024, Canada offers limited opportunities for those pursuing a medical career, with only 17 institutions, and only six in Ontario, granting medical degrees – an alarmingly low number for a developed nation of its size. By contrast, the United States has more than 150 medical schools. Individual U.S. states such as New York and California have 15 and 12 medical schools respectively, while Maryland, which is a fraction the size of Ontario, hosts three. Seven students According to the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC) in its 2024 admissions report, Canadian medical schools accepted just seven international medical students in the 2021-22 academic year. To put this in perspective, that’s a mere 0.35 per cent of the 1,980 offers issued that year. While this report excludes data from five Canadian schools that admit foreign applicants, a more complete dataset from the 2016-17 cycle (excluding only the University of Toronto) shows Canada admitted just 16 international medical students that academic year. This data starkly highlights the theatrical nature of the Ford government’s decision. because even without a ban, international students were never a significant presence in Canadian medical schools. Yet, the Ontario government chose to stage a press conference blaming foreigners instead of addressing the actual shortages of health-care providers and funding for medical education. Rather than taking concrete steps to address these issues, this policy stirs distrust and plays on nativist sentiments. By scapegoating foreigners, Ford’s government exploits Ontarians' fears and frustrations for electoral gain while offering no tangible solutions. Let me emphasize that aspiring doctors rarely choose Canada solely due to the education system. In terms of tuition costs, post-graduate salaries and research funding opportunities, the United States and other European nations offer equally or more appealing options. Many international applicants, myself included, chose Canada because of its commitment to inclusivity and the values that Canadian society represents. This decision to ban international students is a direct affront to those values. As an Ontarian, a taxpayer, an aspiring physician and simply as a decent human being, I urge Premier Ford to stop playing political games and abandon fear-mongering tactics.

Kash Patel has so-called 'enemies list' in 2023 book

Kash Patel has so-called 'enemies list' in 2023 book

Kash Patel, Donald Trump's pick for FBI director, published a so-called 'enemies list' in his 2023 book 'Government Gangsters,' and the list includes Democrats, Biden admin officials and Trump appointees like Bill Barr, Rod Rosenstein and Special Counsel Robert Hur among others.

Poilievre’s Free Ride to Power Has to Stop

Poilievre’s Free Ride to Power Has to Stop When will Pierre Poilievre’s free ride with Canadians end as he cruises toward taking over the country with a large majority? Announcements, Events & more from Tyee and select partners Providing Essential Support for Street-Based Sex WorkersProviding Essential Support for Street-Based Sex Workers This DTES non-profit is commemorating 40 years of non-judgmental support to women and gender-diverse people in need. It is well past time for some answers from the Conservative leader that amount to more than populist epigrams slavishly repeated by the bobble-head brigade he has made of his caucus. For more than a year now, Poilievre and the Conservatives have gotten away with punching their ticket to power by vilifying one person, Justin Trudeau. For most of that time, the Conservative Party of Canada has enjoyed a double-digit lead in the polls. That advantage now stands at a gaping 21 points. Pollster Nik Nanos recently told CTV news that Poilievre has “the easiest job in the country.” All he needs to do is the opposite of whatever Trudeau does. Just so low has the PM fallen, and just so superficial have our politics become.

War on Democracy

By Thom Hartmann We just watched the final fulfillment of a 50 year plan. Louis Powell laid it out in 1971, and every step along the way Republicans have follow it. It was a plan to turn America over to the richest men and the largest corporations. It was a plan to replace democracy with oligarchy. A large handful of America’s richest people invested billions in this plan, and its tax breaks and fossil fuel subsidies have made them trillions. More will soon come to them. As any advertising executive can tell you, with enough money and enough advertising — particularly if you are willing to lie — you can sell anybody pretty much anything. Even a convicted felon, rapist, and friend and agent of America’s enemies. America was overwhelmed this fall by billions of dollars in often dishonest advertising, made possible by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court, and it worked. Democrats were massively outspent, not to mention the power of the billionaire Murdoch family’s Fox “News” and 1500 hate talk radio stations. Open the lens a bit larger, and we find that it goes way beyond just this election; virtually every crisis America is facing right now is either caused or exacerbated by the corruption of big money authorized by five corrupt Republicans on our Supreme Court. They are responsible for our crises of gun violence, the drug epidemic, homelessness, political gridlock, our slow response to the climate emergency, a looming crisis for Social Security and Medicare, the situation on our southern border, even the lack of affordable drugs, insurance, and healthcare. All track back to a handful of Supreme Court justices who’ve sold their votes to billionaires in exchange for extravagant vacations, luxury yachts and motorhomes, private jet travel, speaking fees, homes, tuition, and participation in exclusive clubs and billionaire networks that bar the rest of us from entry. For over two decades, Clarence Thomas and his wife have been accepting millions in free luxury vacations, tuition for their adopted son, a home for his mother, private jet and megayacht travel, and entrance to rarified clubs. Sam Alito is also on the gravy train, and there are questions about how Brett Kavanaugh managed to pay off his credit cards and gambling debts. John Roberts’ wife has made over $10 million from law firms with business before the court; Neil Gorsuch got a sweetheart real estate deal; Amy Coney Barrett refuses to recuse herself from cases involving her father’s oil company. None of this is illegal because when five corrupt Republicans on the Court legalized members of Congress taking bribes they legalized that same behavior for themselves. As a result, we have oligarchs running our media, social media, and buying our elections, while the Supreme Court, with Citizens United, even legalized foreign interference in our political process. Our modern era of big money controlling government began in the decade after Richard Nixon put Lewis Powell — the tobacco lawyer who wrote the infamous 1971 “Powell Memo” outlining how billionaires and corporations could take over America — on the Supreme Court in 1972. In the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, the Court ruled that money used to buy elections wasn’t just cash: they claimed it’s also “free speech” protected by the First Amendment that guarantees your right to speak out on political issues. In the 200 preceding years — all the way back to the American Revolution of 1776 — no politician or credible political scientist had ever proposed that spending billions to buy votes with dishonest advertising was anything other than simple corruption. The “originalists” on the Supreme Court, however, claimed to be channeling the Founders of this nation, particularly those who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, when they said that “money is the same thing as free speech.” In that claim, Republicans on the Court were lying through their teeth. In a letter to Samuel Kercheval in 1816, President and author of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson explicitly laid it out: “Those seeking profits, were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source of corruption in government.” But Republicans on the Supreme Court weren’t reading the Founders. They were instead listening to the billionaires who helped get them on the Court in the first place. Who had bribed them with position and power and then kept them in their thrall with luxury vacations, “friendship,” and gifts. Two years after the 1976 Buckley decision, the Republicans on the Supreme Court struck again, this time adding that the “money is speech and can be used to buy votes and politicians” argument applied to corporate “persons” as well as to billionaires. Lewis Powell himself wrote the majority opinion in the 1978 Boston v Bellotti decision. Justices White, Brennan, and Marshall dissented: “The special status of corporations has placed them in a position to control vast amounts of economic power which may, if not regulated, dominate not only our economy but the very heart of our democracy, the electoral process.” But the dissenters lost the vote, and political corruption of everything from local elections to the Supreme Court itself was now virtually assured. Notice that ruling came down just two years before the Reagan Revolution, when almost all forward progress in America came to a screeching halt. It’s no coincidence. And it’s gotten worse since then, with the Court doubling down in 2010 with Citizens United, overturning hundreds of state and federal “good government” laws dating all the way back to the late 1800s. Thus, today America has a severe problem of big money controlling our political system. And last night it hit its peak, putting an open fascist in charge of our government. No other developed country in the world has this problem, which is why every other developed country has a national healthcare system, free or near-free college, and strong unions that maintain a healthy middle class. It’s why they can afford pharmaceuticals, are taking active steps to stop climate change, and don’t fear being shot when they go to school, the theater, or shopping. It’s why they are still functioning democracies. The ability of America to move forward on any of these issues is, for now, paralyzed with the election of Trump and the GOP taking over the Senate. This is not the end, though; hitting bottom often begins the process of renewal. Many Americans will continue to speak out and fight for a democracy uncorrupted by the morbidly rich. And so will I.

Trump can't travel to these 38 countries now that he's a convicted felon

 Felons lose various rights upon being convicted, from their right to own a firearm to serving on a jury or voting — and former presidents aren't excluded from those restrictions.

Former President Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying records in his New York hush money trial, making him a convicted felon. Now he'll have to navigate what that status means for his rights as any other American felon — but also as one worldwide.

That's because traveling is another right affected by felonies, with 38 nations — including the U.S. — either denying felons entry upfront or denying them if their criminal record is discovered, according to World Population Review. And with the public stage that Trump is on, that latter scenario would probably occur few and far between.

This may affect the Republican presidential front-runner's ability to fulfill his foreign duties if he's reelected come November. And although worldly leaders could make an exception in their travel bans for Trump, it's unclear which countries would be willing to do so, particularly as some of them have been on rocky ground with the former president.

For example, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former President Trump clashed publicly, and Canada reserves the right to refuse entrance to felons upfront. Similarly, with Ukraine, felons are denied if discovered, and Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's tumultuous relationship escalated into the former's impeachment.

Countries that don't allow convicted felons to enter:

1. Argentina
2. Australia
3. Canada
4. China
5. Cuba
6. India
7. Iran
8. Israel
9. Japan
10. Kenya
11. Macau
12. New Zealand
13. South Africa
14. Taiwan
15. United Kingdom
16. United States

Countries that will deny entry to felons if discovered:

1. Brazil
2. Cambodia
3. Chile
4. Dominican Republic
5. Egypt
6. Ethiopia
7. Hong Kong
8. Indonesia
9. Ireland
10. Malaysia
11. Mexico
12. Morocco
13. Nepal
14. Peru
15. Philippines
16. Singapore
17. South Korea
18. Tanzania
19. Tunisia
20. Turkey
21. Ukraine
22. United Arab Emirates

Norway hits pause on controversial deep-sea mining

Norway has shelved plans to open a vast ocean area at the bottom of the Arctic for commercial-scale deep-sea mining. The decision, which was confirmed late Sunday, comes after the country’s Socialist Left Party said it would not support the minority government’s budget unless it dropped the first licensing round, initially scheduled for the first half of next year. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said the move was a “postponement,” while environmental campaigners hailed what they described as a “huge win”.