67GreenRambler wrote:

Te pasas. There isn't enough factory capacity that would effectively titrate the condition manifest here.


russian image hosting

Oh my, how fitting is this? 

Hands up if you remember what true leadership looks like.🤚

https://youtube.com/shorts/Qc_GxnNrTLM?si=fnmnL5_Nv2Lov7oL

I am not as cynical.  I think all parties have people that run and volunteer for the right reasons. However the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP federally and provincially have had leaders that were incompetent, with no people skills, and not cut out for politics.  All have found that making change is much harder and slower than they thought.  In some cases the change can't and won't be made in four or five years as planned. 

The public (or maybe more correct media) expect immediate change or results and then love to tear down the individual and party when it doesn't happen.  They are branded as liars that only look out for their friends or have a secret agenda.   Not saying this doesn't happen, but it is not all politicians from only some parties. 

Some irresponsible media on both the left and right tend to magnify and exaggerate mistakes or situations and try to make the issue more important than it really is.  And other media make excuses and cover for some parties because they align with their or owners beliefs.  To me purposely doing this is about as bad as politicians that do the same.  People and political parties go in and out of power.  Media is always present, so it is important that they also do their jobs for all the right reasons.  

paterson1 wrote:

I am not as cynical.  I think all parties have people that run and volunteer for the right reasons. However the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP federally and provincially have had leaders that were incompetent, with no people skills, and not cut out for politics.  

Yes, I'm not trying to condemn ALL right-wing politicians in that very long explanation, indeed I have voted for Rob Ford and John Tory, and really in the end I had high hopes for both, especially Tory who in particular I started out being against mayor but felt he worked extremely hard at the job and seemed to keep his ties to Rogers out of the way. His moral failing (the affair) was crushing and I had to eat crow when I talked to my brother about that scandal.

But when I speak out against the right-wing politics these days, it is more aimed at how the Reform Party Conservatives and the provincial Conservatives are using the same Trump-style brainwashing techniques on Canadians (hi Mike Roman) which include repeating lies, hate mongering, anti-immigration rhetoric, "freedom" convoys, anti-vax misinformation, etc. to get themselves elected. And as I've gone on about, I do not in any way trust their intentions once they are in power to do the right thing for this country.

Brian Mulroney was a true right-wing politician. The likes of Poilievre, Scheer, Danielle Smith, Ford, Calandra, etc. all reek of far-right wing stink, the same as Trump. They will NOT take this country in a positive direction, and I thank the maker that Carney won. You want the same Christo-fascist morons running this country the same way the Heritage Foundation is running the USA right now?  Vote Conservative. As with those farmers, by the time you realize how wrong you were, you'll be too busy getting a second mortgage to pay off your medical bills and it'll be a mountain to climb to get rid of them. Just like with Ford installing his own loyalists into our health and education institutions, answerable only to him, they will consolidate their power and make sure that they don't get booted out quietly.

Oh, and I will point out that during Rob Ford's chaotic decline as a politician, I actually thought to myself many times, "His brother, Doug Ford, seems to be the sensible one out of the two, he seems to have his head on straight. Maybe that guy should've been mayor instead." So I don't pretend that I'm prescient about who will turn out to be a good political leader and it is a difficult job I agree, but it has now reached the point where I can't ignore that the right-wing in Canada have strayed straight into nutbar territory (ex: Danielle Smith wanting to move all of Albertans' retirement money out of the CPP and into her own slush fund? One that is going to likely wind up in the pockets of oil and gas executives?)

These people specifically are NOT acting in Canadians' best interests -- that's my gut feeling. They were pro-Trump, both Ford and Smith, prior to the tariffs (hell, Smith STILL reeks of being pro-Trump), because they think just like him. It's not public service they are using their positions for, but personal service and personal enrichment.

Being a left-centre supporter is a fairly glum place to be these days: I feel it has become an uphill battle to get left-leaning politicians elected. The right-wing are better funded (by the wealthy who have a vested interest), better organized across the globe (see: Stephen Harper's IDU which is an organization featuring a laundry list of the worst leaders around the globe), and they own almost all the communications platforms (the TV news, social media, newspapers). I remember during the Ontario provincial election, Ford was running voice ads over the P.A. system at Dollarama(!) every time I was shopping in their stores, that's how much money they've got backing them. And they don't hesitate to threaten and intimidate news stations with either lawsuits or withholding buying ads on their channel if they feel slighted (see: CTV firing those two junior editors for supposedly painting their candidate negatively).

Finally, authoritarian and far-right wing governments around the world don't like left-leaning political leaders and as Wendy Mesley once pointed out on CBC National, they set up online troll farms where their agents go online and deliberately spread hate, misinformation and outright lies about those politicians to trick the populace into hating that politician (Trudeau being the most obvious example, he supported Ukraine in resisting the Russian invasion, so Russia paid right-wing podcasters here in Canada to spew lies about Trudeau non-stop to ensure that the Liberals would lose the next federal election. That's already been covered by Canadian news media and confirmed by CSIS, but it should've gotten way more attention than it has).



We are absolutely INUNDATED with right-wing messaging and repetition in Canada, not as bad as the US maybe, but for the average person who just thinks "news is news is news" without any regard to WHO is trying to take control of their belief system, that is going to steer us into the same type of government down below. The one that seems to be on the verge of declaring war with Venezuela.








Let's not help the rich get any richer.


 

Last edited by TomTV (September 9, 2025 3:31 pm)

Thanks for the detailed answer Tom TV.  I don't know, I still have a problem seeing Doug Ford as being anything like Trump or the Republican party.  His party is the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.  It appears that he gets along much better with Mark Carney, than Pierre Poilievre.  Same with Justin Trudeau, he and Ford seemed to get along fine. Mark Carney so far has often acted more like a PC than Liberal.  He appears to be moving the Liberals to the centre in the spirit of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.   

Ford didn't act at all like a Republican during COVID.  We had the most strict conditions and for the longest time than any jurisdiction in North America.  When Republican governors were pounding the drum of "freedom" and no COVID restrictions, the Conservative government in Ontario was going the other way.  Like it or not, Ford was right and Ontario had significantly fewer COVID deaths and cases per capita than most US states.  Could he have done better, yes, but the Ontario, federal and municipal governments in this province generally handled the pandemic well.  To say otherwise is ignoring the facts. 

I don't agree with everything the Ford government has done but draw the line with comparisons with Trump or the Republican party.  That assessment doesn't fly, and I guess most Ontarians see it that way since the latest poll indicates that the Conservatives have actually increased in popularity since the recent provincial election..https://abacusdata.ca/abacus-data-ontario-poll-ford-pcs-climb-to-53-widen-lead-over-liberals-to-26-points/

All these decades later, and yet Barbara Walters had him figured out in 1990.

"No they're not!", said Barbara. 🤣

And just look at the expression on his face. Nothing's changed inside that messed-up skull. Still lying. Still grossly exaggerating. Still disgusting. Still no friends. The last close friend he had was Epstein.

https://youtube.com/shorts/nMUsZaGK2tg?si=0fLcFj5ILpNgQTgD

RadioActive wrote:

Brent Molnar is a former Psychology Professor and Mental Health Consultant for the Ontario Ministry of Health. 

See what you think of his professional assessment of Donald Trump.

The Man-Child in Chief: Why Donald Trump’s Behavior Isn’t Just Alarming—It’s Clinical

Excellent link, RA. One would hope that those among us, spouting MAGA's "tRump Derangement Syndrome" nonsense, would turn off Fox News long enough to read logical, thoughtful pieces, such as your link, and wake up to the madness this sociopath is inflicting on America, Canada and our Western Allies.

Does he have to rape young girls on national television for some to finally clue in, or is the extreme cruelty part of the attraction?

Thank you for the confirmation.

Next?

RadioActive wrote:

RadioActive wrote:

Meanwhile, down south, this cowardly appeasement nonsense has gone way too far.
 
U.S. Open Orders Broadcasters to Censor Reactions to Trump

Nice to see ABC did not cave to this outrageous request. CBS probably would have. 

Boos of Donald Trump heard on ABC's broadcast of US Open

The King is a fink!
 

RadioActive wrote:

Well it IS tennis. So guess there was no "love" lost.

Ba-da-boom 🥁

There are many inane personality traits which shine through from every MAGAt.

However, what does not shine through is any indication of being able to think rationally, or longterm.

Thus, they fall for the same 'dear leader can do no wrong' crap over and over again.

Meanwhile, everything they buy at Walmart, Kroeger, Exxon, etc. is suddenly more expensive. Why? BECAUSE THE END USER PAYS THE TARIFFS, fer god's sake. 🙄

Warnings on the negative impact of tariffs went unheeded. Why? Because Dear Leader promised them American streets paved in gold. Dear Leader would never lie, would He?

Now, as tRump boasts of incredible revenue for the American government from tariffs, do you think one MAGAt would have the brains to ask who's paying all those tariffs (taxes)?

Nope. Don't need nun o' dat der book lernin'.

paterson1 wrote:

I don't agree with everything the Ford government has done but draw the line with comparisons with Trump or the Republican party.  That assessment doesn't fly, and I guess most Ontarians see it that way since the latest poll indicates that the Conservatives have actually increased in popularity since the recent provincial election..https://abacusdata.ca/abacus-data-ontario-poll-ford-pcs-climb-to-53-widen-lead-over-liberals-to-26-points/

First let me say that polls are dubious at best. I think anyone who's been around knows that they cater to whoever paid for the poll (and these days most polls are usually bought for by the right-wing e.g. Frasier Institute says taxes are too high!) and you can tailor the questions to get whatever outcome you need to get.

On top of that, last year a thread on Twitter discussed how (supposedly) a certain pollster will ask those who sign up exactly what their political leanings are... so the polling company knows which of their surveyed members are Liberal-voters, NDP-voters, or PC-voters. And knowing that... we get this:













Now maybe they've changed their ways, but I doubt it. Pollsters are a business, like anything else. You pay for results, something that you can put into a press release (usually around election time) knowing that the lazy news media will pick it up and air it on their newscast without much scrutiny.

Why do this? There can be several reasons. Let's say it's the Conservatives who ordered the poll:

1) show that their leader is really really far ahead of the current Prime Minister, a shoe-in to be elected as the next leader.  Psychological effect: people who might go out and vote for the Liberals decide it's not worth the hassle if the other guy is so far ahead, let's just stay home and order up pizza instead. A polling tactic like this is called voter suppression.  And it works, people are lazy, and going to the trouble to vote at some distant polling station after a long day at work, all they need is an excuse to stay home and just vegetate, and the supposed poll gives them that excuse.

At the same time, they send out emails and texts to all of their right-wing base to motivate them to go out and vote no matter what. It MUST be a two-pronged strategy, otherwise their own base might just say "Yay! Our guy is going to win! Let's stay home and order pizza instead!" And the right-wing party knows this.

2) make their candidate seem more popular than he actually is. This is the herd mentality, where the right-wing rabble need "social proof" that their political party has picked a winner as their candidate. Everyone wants to back a sure-thing, a winner, and the poll, fake or real, offers evidence.  Social proof is a real phenomenon that has been used to market things like energy drinks (the most famous example being Red Bull littering the parking lots of nightclubs with already-empty Red Bull cans, giving nightclub goers the impression that a lot of other people must be drinking Red Bull so they should order some too. The staging of fake empty cans in a place where the public can see them offered social proof that other people were drinking this, so you now join in).

3) in the case of the Republicans, they need to show that Trump is either ahead of Kamala or in a tie (when the reality is, he was probably a distant second). This allows for the Republicans to claim, if Kamala wins, that the election was clearly "rigged" and the Democrats must have again cheated just like they did in 2020 because hey, the polls leading up to election night showed a different story, right?

As has been stated by both left and right-wing parties, the only poll that matters is the one on election night, but these paid-for polls exist for reasons other than just to show how things actually are. These days they are more devious marketing tools to an unsuspecting public unaware that they ARE being influenced when they see the poll showing up on the local 6pm news. And no, for the record, when I see a poll showing the Liberals or NDP ahead in some race, I don't assume it's true either, I just make a mental note to go out and vote no matter what.

It may be illegal to tamper with the results of a poll after it has been conducted, but there's no law about picking WHO will fill out your political survey and the pollster picks who they want, knowing if their chosen surveyed are past-Conservative voters, they'll likely give results that make their Conservative client very happy.

EDIT: Here's an example of a poll question... I hope people can see that this is NOT how a normal poll should be conducted:



I also didn't realize how cheap it is to commission a (computerized) poll:


Geez, for $500, I could pay for a poll that proves to my girlfriend that I am widely acknowledged by women across the country as "Canada's most handsome man and best lover in the bedroom".  Okay, it might take more than $500 to prove that :D

More on your other points in a later post when I'm not as sleepy.

Last edited by TomTV (September 9, 2025 10:29 pm)

Voters should definitely do their research but I've pointed out that we and the United States live in a right-wing media ecosystem (TV, newspapers, social media). It is said that the aim of propaganda is not to convince you into believing the other point of view, but to create so much confusion that you don't know what to believe any more. When everything sounds factual, you can't base your voting decisions on any information floating out in the infosphere.

This can then leave voters vulnerable to making their decision about who to vote for, based on "gut feeling" i.e. your emotions. Ideally this is what right-wing politicians like, because I find them to be disturbingly good at manipulating the emotions of their audiences mostly by triggering anger and negativity (it's been shown that anger gets people motivated to DO something e.g. go out and vote). When you don't have reliable facts, or conflicting facts, you vote based on how you feel.

I go by a fairly simple rule that a) the politician has to conduct himself as a professional, not a clown or a showman. The latter is where you will find the Trumps, the Doug Fords (Crown Royal pouring et al), the ones that are catering to the dumber members of society to get their vote. Politics is not entertainment, it should be boring but serious (and oh do I long for the days when politics were so boring I could tune them out).  b) they are not solely trying to stir up hate and negativity in their base, c) avoid cheap slogans, repetition of the same message over and over again, and present an actual authentic version of themselves (if they do all of these things, I suspect they are using the Nazi propaganda playbook to get elected and they are gone from any serious consideration). This last one is a fine line though, because one could argue it's just good marketing tactics, but you combine it with the other a) and b) and I don't think it's just good marketing.

At this point I was going to talk more about Ford, but tonight's Charlie Kirk assassination has changed things. Since the other thread got shut down, I'll post this interesting bit from Twitter tonight.






I was actually wondering to myself if Trump's people might not have done it themselves, exactly as the twitter theory above suggests: a repeat of the fake assassination attempt on Trump from last year, but on Charlie Kirk, except that the shooter missed whatever the intended mark was (ear? shoulder?) and actually killed Kirk by mistake.

Why do this? Obviously when it happened last year, it garnered a huge rally from MAGA for Trump and helped him "win" the election. Currently with his own MAGA base questioning if he's a pedophile and involved with Epstein, he needed a BIG distraction. Attacking Venezuela didn't do the trick, so they could have tried falling back on last year's successful tactic.. but screwed up badly.

The intention was to MISS, not to hit the bulletproof vest. But wind conditions or some other factor could've altered the bullet's trajectory just enough to strike his neck. If it was an AR-15, my understanding from the Uvalde massacre of those children is that a single hit is like being hit by a grenade and body parts explode on contact. There would be no saving Kirk.

 

Last edited by TomTV (September 11, 2025 4:52 pm)

And let's just add some more fuel to the conspiracy fire... it could've been a disgruntled trans person, anything is possible but it also could've been a MAGAt as well (or heck, it could've been Israel or Russians... there are a lot of possibilities here)








Don't worry, Trump-appointed FBI director Kash ("Cash") Patel is on the job:


He will find the perp and then the perp will hang themselves in jail.



Here's that same guy again(?) from last year's Trump assassination, showing up again at Charlie Kirk's final performance, seemingly giving hand signals to someone?


Video of the man doing the strange hand signal thing is here:
https://x.com/NRubbed/status/1966233888562499860

Update: Twitter folk say that the hand signal man is Kirk's bodyguard but no one has a name. He has tattoos along his forearm, slightly different haircut. The SS agent that is grabbing Trump is Sean Curran, who got a promotion once Trump became president the second time.




It's a really close resemblance but Kirk's apparent bodyguard is younger-looking from these closer images.
 

Last edited by TomTV (September 12, 2025 2:29 am)