Blinken and Biden, shit and Shinola

Foreign Sec Antony Blinken and Sloppy Joe have been giving interviews summing up their glorious four years atop the global power pyramid. To hear Antony tell the tale, American diplomacy has never been a more potent force for good in this world. Never! Um… from where I’m sitting, (on the couch in front of the fireplace), American diplomacy looks like an unmitigated disaster. What diplomacy? Oh, you mean the diplomacy that prevented a war in Ukraine? Or the diplomacy that stopped the Gaza genocide in its tracks? US diplomacy never recovered after Tony and Jake exposed their complete incompetence to China’s FM at that embarrassing meeting in Alaska just a couple months into the Biden admin. Wang Yi quickly concluded that Tony and Jake were to diplomacy what Australian Olympian Raygun was to break-dancing… not ready for prime time. Blinky’s delusions are nothing compared to the twilight fantasies of Sloppy Joe. It’s almost impossible to imagine Biden believes the nonsense he spews. He talks as though he’s made America great again! Surely those are merely the musings of a late-stage dementia patient. In reality, no four years in American history have dissipated US standing in the world as much as these four under Biden. From the Keystone Cops retreat from Kabul, to the “whatever it takes for as long as it takes” disaster in Ukraine, to “we’re working 24/7 to get the hostages back” (for over a year with zero results) in Israel, no serious person anywhere on the planet imagines these four years past have in any aspect enhanced America’s standing in the world. Then again, a few idle media posts about tariffs from the president-elect have thrown Canadian politics into crisis. I guess there’s at least one country that still takes Uncle Sam seriously.

You know you're a serious county when...

When the guy who wants to be the next Liberal Party leader debuts his campaign on a US comedy network. Mark Carney is a Serious Person. As such, he is networked with many other Serious Persons in the upper reaches of the ruling plutocracy. After all, you don’t get to be governor of not one, but two central banks, unless you have the stamp of approval from, for lack of a better term, the ruling class. For reasons known only to Mr. Carney, and/or his blackmailers, he seemingly is willing to risk his thus-far mostly stellar rep for a chance to lead the Liberal Party of Canada into the next election. That makes no sense on any level. Be that as it may, Mr. Carney chose to debut his Prime Ministerial campaign on John Stewart’s satirical talk show. You can see the wheels turning in the heads of those PR sharpies who dreamed up this stunt; we gotta show Carney as more than a stuffed shirt… let’s showcase him as a regular guy who can take a joke! Alrighty then! John Stewart it is! At least he didn’t show up on Colbert! Does Carney improve the odds for the Liberal Party? Remember, this is the party that brought in Hillary Clinton for their ‘23 policy convention. When the cupboard is so bare you gotta call on Hillary, I guess Carney sort of passes for a “fresh face.” And since Canadian politics have degenerated into a non-stop clown show, there’s no better stage to present the next leader of the ruling Liberal Party than on a US comedy network.

As America lurches from one military debacle to the next, who profits from all this disaster?

If you know America, you’ll know nothing happens unless somebody makes a buck on it. America has been lurching from one military fiasco to the next for well over fifty years by now, and you know that wouldn’t keep happening if nobody was trousering wads of cash off all these disasters. Let’s take a look at how the big military contractors have fared out since just before the WOT (War on Terror) set America on the path of endless war after 9/11. Boeing was under forty bucks in January of 2000. In spite of years of bad news on their civilian side, what with their airplanes falling out of the sky on a regular basis, it’s still up over 400%. General Dynamics has gone up well over 1000%, from twenty bucks to $250. Lockheed Martin is up over 2000%, from twenty bucks to $460. Northrup Grumman is likewise up almost 2000%. Get the general direction we’re going here? In every case, the majority owners are a handful of hedge funds, led by Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street. Given that America hasn’t won a war since 1945, what is it that keeps these war stocks climbing? There’s an elaborate think-tank network, lavishly funded by the war profiteers, that steers American policy inexorably towards more war. What’s doubly disturbing; the overpriced products of the US military-industrial machine don’t seem to meet the standards of… North Korea? You’re dealing with a closed loop; a veritable “perpetual motion” machine. As long as the experts at the think-tanks and the lobbyists can bribe and cajole the elected representatives into more war, the gravy train will keep chugging along.

As Babylon burns, lawyers drool

You can bet the torts and briefs will be a-flyin’ long before the fires are out. There’s an abundance of fat targets just waiting for subpoenas to be served. The bureaucrats throughout the upper echelon of the local and state governments. The feds. The fire department, police department, and emergency management at all levels. This unprecedented fire event will result in an even more unprecedented fireball of litigation! The bad news; all concerned will be sued to death over the next ten years. The good news; unprecedented opportunity for recent law graduates!

Lloyd Austin says Ukraine war is greatest military success story of our time

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin pulled that rabbit out of his ample arse at the Mannheim Air Base this week on the occasion of the 25th meeting of the "Contact Group" of Ukraine’s enablers. According to Lloyd, thanks to America’s leadership and the resolve of the freedom loving peoples of the world, Ukraine now has a “booming defense-industrial sector.” You might want to check into that, Lloyd; those booms are coming from the Russian missiles flattening Ukraine’s defense-industrial sector faster than the combined West can stand them up. How is it possible for Austin to make such ludicrous claims at a time when mainstream anti-Russian media like the New York Times and the Washington Post have grudgingly concluded this war is lost? Simple; we’ve come to the place in the narrative where America declares victory and goes home. Sure, there’s a few loose ends… but hey, that’s not our problem! We gave Ukraine everything it needed to defeat Putin. It’s not our fault they screwed it up. So see ya later alligator! Uncle Sam’s got bigger fish to fry - in the South China Sea!

Canada vows to fight against Trump threats

On A6 of today’s Globe & Mail, Marcus Gee, one of the top knobs at the Globe brain trust, throws down the gauntlet; “Thanks, Trump, for reminding Canadians why our county is worth fighting for.” Eight pages later, none other than the little guy from Shawinigan chimes in with a 3/4 page middle finger right in Trump’s face. We gotta get serious about Donald Trump’s outrageous threats! At 91 years of age, Jean Chretien has dusted off his Ross rifle and was last seen racing his mobility scooter in the general direction of the US embassy on Sussex street. He is “ready at the ramparts” to defend this great country from the evil designs of the brutal dictator, Donny J. It’s good to see Canadian thought leaders vowing to fight for us, at least till you realize they’re only fighting “metaphorically.” As in, not actually fighting at all. In terms of an actual real-world resistance, let’s get serious! Everybody knows we long ago surrendered our sovereignty. In the empirical world, ie the real one, we’ll fight Trump’s Anschluss the way Austria fought Hitler’s Anschluss… With cheering crowds!

Canada should solve its housing crisis before it buys a fleet of F-35s

Christy Clark is on to something. She's announced she'll take a run for the leadership of the Liberal Party, currently 20 points behind Poilievre's Conservatives. Pierre Poilievre is running a two-gear campaign. Low gear is, “axe the tax.” High gear is, “I’m not Justin.” What else does he have? Plenty of pie-in-the-sky, but not a whole helluva lot that would differentiate him from Christy Clark now that Clark has vowed to axe the tax too. And she’s at least as much “not Trudeau” as Pierre. To prevail over the Conservative’s 20 point lead in the polls, she’ll need to take some bold initiatives. Let me suggest one; backing away from following US foreign policy in lock-step. She would revive a Liberal Party tradition wherein we weren’t afraid to chart our own course. Think Jean Chrétien declining the invitation to join the “coalition of the willing” post 9\11. I think it’s Pierre’s Achilles heel that he panders so enthusiastically to the US-NATO-Israel crowd. There are many Canadian voters who recognize we have priorities beyond defending the status quo. Clark’s team could take a gander at my highly relevant post; How many public housing units could we build for the cost of a single F-35. That’s a debate worth having.