Top blogging of 2025

As with my monthly roundups, while these were the most read pieces of 2025, not all of them were written IN 2025. 

And, as with the monthly roundups, I'll note the original date of "evergreen" pieces. I'll also, if they are older than 2024, take a guess as to their ongoing, or renewed, popularity.

And, with that?

No. 10: "Fuck r/NationalPark for a duopoly tribalist ban." It was an additional piss-off because I had extensive facts to document the non-duopoly comment that got me banned, and because r/Texas had pulled the same shit not too much earlier. 

No. 9 came from early in 2025, just a couple of months into Trump 2.0's reign, and explains the title of the short piece: "The Resistance 2.0 wants to relitigate Russiagate 1.0." That said, Trump continues to give BlueAnon and Never Trumper Rethuglicans ammo for this, and no, MAGAts, not in a trolling way, but in an increasingly Trumpian stupidity way. 

No. 8 was political prognostication. "Oh, Canada, can the Liberals win again?" They and PM Mark Carney did indeed, but Canada lost in large part due to the utter implosion of the New Democratic Party, which saw the radioactivity of its previous confidence and supply agreement with Trudeau come home to roost. Meanwhile, for denizens of parliamentary democracies who laugh at, or scratch their heads over, the lengthiness of US presidential elections, why does it take a full year for the NDP to choose a new party leader, or over in Britain, a new party, the Your Party, the same amount of time to choose an official first party leader. In addition, if your country's upper house of government is not that much more democratic than the US Senate (looking at Canada, Great Britain, Germany and France for starters), you have additional lack of room to mock.

Speaking of mocking?

No. 7, "The REAL Footprints in the Sand," mocked indeed that hoary old Christian chestnut. 

No. 6 was one iteration from the weekly Texas Progressives blog roundup. I have no idea why it trended, but it did.

No. 5 was from way back in 2018, about my approval of the St. Louis Cardinals trading for Paul Goldschmidt. I'm guessing it trended because of him being let go by the Cards after the 2024 offseason, then signing a deal with the Yankees.

No. 4 was a brief post from last summer, "Trump is actually right on California's high-speed rail." 

No. 3? Cannabis is always a good hot topic. That said, while I said, or claimed, back in 2021, that there was "More pressure on Texas to loosen pot rules," the state has done no such thing other than to have Strangeabbott and Dannie Goeb get in a fight over THC gummies last summer. 

No. 2? "Three Dems on SCOTUS, no environmentalists," summarizes part of why I'm a non-duopoly voter. 

And the most popular post of last year?

.....

Drumroll ...

Was from 2019.

"Early 2020 Democratic presidential oddsmaking, desirability" ranked all halfway serious contenders on both, the latter ranking from a non-duopoly leftist point of view. I wasn't totally wrong on odds. Saint Bernard of Sanders was No. 1 on that for me, followed by Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala is a Cop tying for second and Dementia Joe in fourth. 

Bernie of course got shivved by a mix of Dear Leader and Harry Reid, who rallied the insiders around Dementia Joe at the same time. That said, as I documented elsewhere, Bernie showed his own balllessness in the campaign, which didn't help. Kamala got the token (it was) Veep nod, while Gillibrand disappeared. 

Can Canada's NDP survive?

It's a tough question, raised by Canada's rough equivalent of Harper's, The Walrus.

They say it won't be easy.

They note the "Third Way" has hit all Western social democratic parties. Compounding this, the New Democratic Party never was as strong as Germany's Social Democrats or Britain's Labour.

But, the NDP joined them in creating self-inflicted pain.

And, just-resigned former leader Jagmeet Singh arguably botched it by entering the confidence and supply agreement with Liberals, arguably getting too little from it, arguably exiting too late, and exiting at a point a Liberal loss would be blamed on them.

So, many NDPers acted kind of like DSA Roseys in the US, and halfway sheepdogged for the Liberals. Certainly, many rank and file jumped ship. 

There's other problems, going back nearly 15 years.

Jack Layton caved into Canada's version of a professional class, and the NDP started moving rightward then, at least partially unmooring from his party's roots. Then came the whole fiasco of how Tom Mulcair replaced Layton. 

And, that professional class and its inside-NDP enablers don't want to accept the messages of this election:

Left-wing politics in Canada appears to be at a crossroads. The NDP just suffered a spectacular defeat. Certainly, there will be a battle for the party’s soul. But the party establishment is not interested in ceding control and seems not to have really gotten the message. They want a quick leadership race where only “serious” candidates run, with an entry fee of $150,000, five times what it was in 2017 when Singh ran for leader.

Oy. 

What gets me is why Jagmeet Singh did the confidence and supply agreement with Liberals when Pretty Boy Trudeau had already sabotaged electoral reform. This piece says that, along with European-style labor representation on corporate boards, laws boosting employee coops, a national bank and more, have to be part of a new NDP agenda. After all, much of this was part of Tommy Douglas' original agenda.

The opportunity is there. That piece, from a left-liberal Canadian site, notes new Prime Minister Mark Carney is already moving rightward. 

And so, from south of the border, if Carney keeps raising the word "Canadianism," or the phrase "Elbows Up," or the bogeyman of Trump, even while continuing that rightward move the NDP has to avoid getting suckered. And, they need to get a new party head elected soon, and someone from outside Layton's professional-managerial-consultant group.

Oh, Canada — the 2025 results

In my Monday morning longform, I predicted the general outline of what we seem to have actually gotten — Liberal win, but plurality, not majority government, NDP decline. I went further on Shitter and offered numbers of 155-146-23-17-2. As it turns out, the "1" in the front of the "17" was wrong, as the NDP imploded worse than I would have thought and has lost official party status, in 168-144-23-7-1 numbers.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has resigned rather than get fired. Technically, the NDP could offer confidence and supply for Liberals to form a majority government, but in reality, that would probably just shove them further into irrelevance. (Also, and I don't know Canadian governing law, the NDP may not be allowed to do this after losing official national party status.)

We will see more in weeks ahead, but the margin of win means that Liberal leader Mark Carney could serve out the full four years.

And, with that, not only is party leader Pierre Poliviere a loser, but so are the Conservatives as a party. Do they double down on absorbing people like the now-defunct Alberta "Brexit" party, aka Wexit or whatever it was, or do they move off some of this stuff?

Also a winner? Canadian exceptionalism. And, yes, it's a thing, starting with the denial that "nice, polite Canadians" hold to such a thing.

Oh, Canada — can the Liberals win again?

Today is Canadian election day. For Merikkkans who think Canada is a junior brother of the US, well, not exactly, and definitely on elections. 

This piece is a mix of a primer on Canadian governance for Americans who don't understand it, a look at the state of Canada's political parties at the federal level, and some thoughts and guesses about how the election might turn out.

First, Canada is a parliamentary government, technically a parliamentary monarchy, being part of the British Empire Commonwealth, currently ruled over by the King Charles Spaniel via a governor general. 

The parliamentary is the key difference. As in other parliamentary governments, whether constitutional monarchies or parliamentary republics, parliament is king, so to speak. The prime minister and members of their cabinet sit in the lower house, in this case, the Canadian Commons, named after its British progenitor.

The Canadian Senate does exist, and has more power than the British Lords, but far less than the US Senate. And, His Majesty's ministers don't sit there. (At least not by convention, I think, like in the British Lords.)

So, the party winning the Commons — or, as is often the case, forming a winning coalition government — controls the executive. Or they form a minority government, with the governor general's blessing, or the president's blessing in parliamentary republics, when deemed necessary.

In other ways, though, there are broad similarities.

As a "Westminster" government, like the U.S. is, indirectly, parliamentary members are elected from single-member districts in first past the post elections. That is just like general elections in the US (with the exception of Georgia on Senate races that I know of). A plurality is all you need in a three-party race. This is unlike, say, Germany, where the Bundestag has single-member districts but also has what are known as "overhang" seats, so the composition of the body matches, approximately, the nationwide vote for each party. It's totally unlike Israel's Knesset, where members are elected on proportional representation, and with 120 members for that little bitty country.

Back to the Westminster angle of the above, and plurality wins.

Canada has three parties — well, in a way it does. Let's look.

The Liberals, currently in power under prime minister Justin Trudeau. The Canadian equivalent of U.S. Democrats, other than Canada having national health care, brought by the Liberals eons ago. That's one party.

The Conservatives, the equivalent of U.S. Republicans. Like on this side of the border, they've become more and more MAGAt-ified, especially post-COVID. That's a second.

The New Democratic Party.  Picture the Democratic Socialists of America "Roseys" being a separate party, rather than an interest group within Democrats. That's these people. They're half a party, not a full party. Untimely deaths and weak leaders have led to them imploding more than once.

Bloc Québécois. Picture something like a Confederate States of America party, but instead, wanting either greater autonomy for, or independence for, Quebec. The party is internally split on which is acceptable, and tries to figure out how to align this with the Parti Québécois. For Americans, or Canadians for that matter, or others, for that matter? Perhaps a good comp is the relationship of the BJP and RSS in India? This is also the best illustration of how loose the connection is between federal and provincial parties, which itself is a bug, not a feature, Canadians. They're one-third of a party.

Greens. More powerful, relatively, than U.S. Greens. Two current members in the Commons. Riven factionally in the past few years over Zionism, unlike U.S. Greens. They're one-sixth of a party.

That gets us to three.

(I'll interject at this point. As of Saturday, polls showed the Liberals 4 percentage points ahead of Conservatives. That said, Conservatives outpolled Liberals nationally the last two elections but were still the second party because of the consolidated nature of their support.)

There's also Canadian Libertarians, with a shadow of the interest of what the U.S. version gets. Two different Communist parties. And other smaller flotsam.

That's my mildly snarky translation.

Hugely snarky, and more cynical than I am, from within his own country? Substack, Goodreads and Shitter (unless he killed his account, which he may have) friend Adam McPhee.

And, yes, his "Whoever Wins, We Lose," is far more snarky. And, it hacked multiple Canadian Facebook friends when I posted and tagged them.

Here's the non-snarky opening grafs:

I meant to join 7.3 million of my fellow Canadians this past weekend and vote in the advanced polls for the upcoming federal election, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I still intend to vote on election day, but man, things are looking bleak. I guess if I have any issues, they are: 1) Canada must not be complicit in the ongoing genocide in Gaza and must actively work to put pressure on Israel to stop it, and 2) Canada must return to building socialized housing, which is the only surefire, longterm method of bringing the cost of living down for the working class.

There really aren’t a whole lot of good options. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at the parties.

And, the snark comes after. I won't reference it all, but the Liberals need it. This, the last graf, is his nutgraf on the election:

The polls have been telling us that the Liberals are on track to win the election, and the only question is if they’ll cross the two hundred seat threshold, but I’m starting to think this is a Kamala Harris situation: a last minute switch-out and an utter refusal to do politics that leaves someone odious and unwanted in power. But if the first-past-the-post system blesses the Liberals one more time, I suspect we’ll be looking at more of a Kier Starmer situation: immediate unpopularity as a direct result of a refusal to do anything that might help the working class.

Indeed. Candidate and current premier Mark Carney has been a governor of both the Bank of Canada and Bank of England. Neoliberalism and globalism personified! Before Trump turned the race topsy-turvy, Carney would have been a liability, which leads one to ponder just how thin the Liberal "bench" is, perhaps in part because Trudeau chased enough off.

The first of my Canadian friends to get bent out of shape? A Nova Scotian who claims to lean NDP and even be sympathetic to Greens, but is doing strategery lesser evilism voting for Librulz. She also decried Adam for not listing enough corruption by Conservatives, and indicated he is uninformed. No, he's not, and that's not the focus of his piece.

Besides, he said this which sums up today's Conservatives:

Obviously I don’t really feel bad for the Conservatives. Seeing them eat shit is the one good thing I can imagine happening in this election, and if it happens I will happily take a few days to gloat. But unless the infighting to replace Poilievre gets particularly nasty, their party won’t break, and the problem they present will only grow worse because opposition benches are actually a better place for the Conservatives to do what they now do best: farming internet grievances and turning them into cash donations, either directly to the party or to one of their many allied social media operations.

Bingo, I do believe.

(Per Adam's intro, he claims to want to address housing, but nobody believes him. Of the parties that add up to three? I know Liberals and Conservatives are Zionist. Greens overall support Palestinians, but had a big fight over that a few years ago that led to their leader resigning, and an old leader of 13 years' tenure, Elizabeth May, coming back, NDP generally supports Palestinians, and the Bloc Québécois is a bunch of weasels. Beyond Adam, Greens are as good as U.S. Greens on the environment, NDP is squishes and everybody else is crap. On Russia-Ukraine? All of them, including Greens, are squishes from this leftist's point of view who knows the score there since the Maidan in 2014. Indeed, all global Green parties outside the U.S., I think, are toadies of the US and NATO on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. See this piece from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for more on all parties; per Adam, you can ignore the People's Party.) 

Let us continue to the snarking. Next, it's the Bloc.

I won’t be voting for the Bloc Quebecois because for some reason they refuse to run a candidate in my non-Quebec riding.

How many times do I have to say this? You can’t win the pennant playing nothing but home games. The BQ should be running candidates in the rest of Canada, not so much uniting distant minority Francophone communities, but rather threatening to do Bill 101-style legislation to Calgary and Saskatoon. I mean, the Conservatives are basically the Bloc Albertois, they don’t pretend they’re going to help anyone in the Maritimes, but people in Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton still love pretending they’re on the team. Why can’t the BQ do the same?

If you're wondering what Bill 101 is? This is it. Maybe, if this DID happen, you could recruit Metis in Alberta and Saskatchewan to actually support something like that? And, I guess Adam can't be troubled to do French diacritical marks?

NDP? A mix of snark and serious issues. Kind of like me with U.S. Greens:

I probably won’t be voting for the NDP this time around.

I was a member of the party once in the past, to vote in a leadership election. Jagmeet Singh was never my candidate, but he beat the candidate I voted for by a wide margin so I thought I’d give him a chance. But now his time is up, and he’s gotta go. ...

Canada needs a party of the left, and there’s a chance that the NDP will someday be that party. But right now they need to wake up, and the only for that to happen is for members of their traditional base to withhold their vote. So be it.

Side note for Merikkkans. In most parliamentary systems, because you don't have primaries for Congressmen, presidents, governors, etc., "being a member of a party" is something beyond what Merikkkans mean when they say "I'm a Democrat/Republican." It usually is an actual membership, like Freemasonry or something, with dues, etc.

Back to the main thread.

I understand. In modern times, from my knowledge of Up North, the NDP went in the tank when Jack Layton died and Tom Mulcair was elected to succeed him. And, contra anybody on Facebook who thinks he's either less than totally informed, or else biased toward Conservatives, the fact that McPhee once was involved enough with NDP politics to vote in a leadership election refudiates that.

One other thing that I would hold against the NDP? When in "confidence and supply" with the Liberals from 2021-24, they failed to ever hold Pretty Boy Trudeau to his 2015 promise to get rid of FPTP.

Greens? Even more scathing than the two full parties and the Bloc:

I will not be voting for the Green Party because I despise them. They do absolutely nothing and somehow collect six percent of the vote as if it’s rent. There is a longstanding misperception that because they all come off as hippies that they are part of the left. The Greens have never had a bigger presence in parliament, but climate change and the environment have never been less talked about than they are now.

I will say that Elizabeth May has grown on me, somewhat. She’s clearly having fun running her personality cult, and I’d certainly take hers over the wave of fringe beliefs that have been washing up on our shores in recent years. I’m tempted to give her credit as the only politician who has stood up to zionist bullying and survived, but honestly that whole affair over the Green Party leadership is so byzantine that I might be misremembering it. And anyway the stakes were so small that they count for literally nothing.

Ouch.

From where I stand, I know of the leadership tussle and how it related to Zionism. I didn't know anything about May allegedly having a "cult of personality," but I do know she led the party for 13 years, stepped down, then came back over Annamie Paul shitting the party bed with Zionism. I did not know she was born here in Merikkka. She bounced around to three ridings, in Ontario, then Nova Scotia, before being elected in British Columbia. (In Westminster systems in general, including the U.S. House of Representatives, you don't have to actually live in the district or riding you represent.) That said, Adam may be right; looking at her page, she, like Jill Stein, believes WiFi causes cancer. She also supports homeopathy. And other things. And, the Green Party is more factionalized than U.S. Greens, or so it seems — hard as that seems to be possible.

There's also the question over whether the Greens had a cheating by withdrawal strategery of sorts this year. 

I also wonder if May has other "secrets," like an investment problem like Stein has here.

Anyway, for my Edmonton Green friend on Facebook who was butt-hurt over this? Given the size of Canadian ridings and that Greens, Liberals and NDP all engage in strategic voting deals, yeah, why haven't they gotten past the two-riding mark?

Ignore the People's Party. Adam does snark on it, the Canadian Libertarians and both Communist parties. 

The Canadian Senate? Almost as non-democratic as the British Lords. Like the U.S. Senate, not proportional to population. Arguably the German Bundesrat is even more undemocratic. Members are appointed on a Land by Land basis by the government of each Land, and must vote in a bloc. The apportionment by Länder is not as unequal population-wise as the U.S. Senate, but it's at least as much so as Canada. The French Senate, though not as much as the U.S., has a rural-departments bias, and, unlike Canada's, or Germany's Bundesrat, has thoroughgoing powers. It, too, though, is elected indirectly. That's why I love it when people elsewhere lecture Merikkka. Tis true that we have that nutty electoral college. But, definitely at the time, we weren't the only place.

Anyway, my final personal angle? 

If I lived in Canada and were eligible to vote?

If I were in a riding that had a Green candidate, I'd probably one-third hold my nose and vote Green. If the Green candidate were totally non-viable, but the NDP had a viable candidate in that riding, I'd probably two-thirds hold my nose and vote NDP, maybe three-quarters.

If I were in a riding with no Green but an NDP? I'd do just as above.

No Green nor NDP? I'd spoil the ballot, like Adam. In a parliamentary system with an unelected upper house, that's all you can do. You can't undervote the particular race because your riding is the only vote there is. So, if NOTA is your desire, then you have to spoil your ballot to send a signal.

Now, all of this assumes I'm not in a riding where one or another of the two Canadian Commie parties are. If they're available in a district that has neither Green nor NDP, I'll pull that lever, rather than spoil the ballot.

==

As for the result? As noted above, Liberals have a lead in polls, but that doesn't mean a lot, per recent Canadian election history. In addition, Poliviere, per a US News piece, may be closing the gap again. I will make a couple of predictions, thought.

Whether Conservatives or Liberals win, it will be a minority government.

And, the NDP will fall to 20 (or fewer) seats.

Bye, Pretty Boy Trudeau

Well, Justin did it on his own terms. His resignation is official, along with a request to the governor-general to prorogue Parliament until just before a service-and-supply vote in late March.

So, he chased Freeland off, has no other clear successor, and wants the Crown's representative to give him 2 1/2 months of grace for that? Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives cannot submit a no-confidence vote during the prorogation period, per CBC. More weasellyness from Trudeau.

They can be submitted after that time. Trudeau seems to expect them, which means he's hoping that he can defeat them and stall out the next election until its scheduled October date.

Will that happen?

Depends on if Jagmeet Singh as NDP head thinks it's beneficial to his party or not, which in turn depends on how much or how little he has his shit together. I'm not hugely holding my breath.

That said, NDP leadership will probably see their party's performance as a referendum on Singh. The party did gain one seat in 2021, but is still far from its glory days.

Trudeau's resignation is effective as of his replacement as party leader, and not immediate. The first link notes the search normally takes four-five months, but of course will be expedited even without a formal no-confidence vote, whether a successful one or not.

Other than that? CNN's live streaming updates have lies by Pretty Boy, including that his one big regret was not getting ranked choice voting in Canada, though he doesn't use that word. Dood. When the NDP was in formal coalition, you never tried to get proportional representation, and never even discussed RCV.

Check Wiki's page or elsewhere on updates for when the 2025 election date is set.

Bye, bye Justin?

Politico magazine notes that a bunch of parliamentary backbenchers from Justin Trudeau's own Liberal Party are trying to persuade the Canadian prime minister to walk to the exit — and maybe to give him a nudge in that mythical nice, polite Canadian way if needed. (It is mythical, and that's the first, but not the only, think Politico gets wrong.)

As in the US, per those interviewed anonymously, politically strategic leaks have been part of the process, which makes the "this wasn't supposed to be public" disclaimer by one of the Anony Mice so funny.

The more serious problem is that, within the party, none of the top options as party leader seem keen to step forward, and most of them aren't well known, though some are better known than Politico claims. Theoretically, in a parliamentary system, that's not such a big deal, but can be. Those who are somewhat better known (contra Politico's claims), like Finance Minister Christya Freeland, might have their own baggage.  She, at least, most certainly does have baggage and certainly is well known by many Canadians involved in the political process, especially since the start of the Russia-Ukraine War. She's also been foreign minister and deputy PM, for doorknob's sake.

From my point of view, beyond Pretty Boy Justin still harboring people like Freeland, his administration's continued hating of Palestinians, most recently exemplified by kowtowing to both the US duopoly and Canadian Conservatives by putting Samidoun on Canada's terror list is another reason to kick his ass out the door. (That said, no other Liberal would be better on this.)

It's ALSO yet another reason to ask, what is the New Democratic Party doing to gear up for the next election after voting to end the confidence and supply agreement?

Update, Oct. 25: Pretty Boy Trudeau finds his inner Poppy Bush and says "Not gunna leave. Wouldn't be prudent." It WOULD, though, be self-delusional to think he has the best chance of defeating Poilievre's Conservatives.

World news roundup: Irian Jaya, Syria, Canada

Irian Jaya, or West Papua, per Counterpunch, continues to descend further in its own, Tolstoyean-specific, misery and hell. For the unfamiliar, the western half of the island of the New Guinea was, during Dutch colonial rule, administered separately from the Dutch East Indies. And, it held on to it after Indonesian independence in 1949, leading to the West New Guinea dispute in the early 1960s. Sukarno turned up the heat on the Dutch, pushed the US, and got Soviet weapons for a possible invasion. The Dutch turned the territory over to the UN. It almost immediately handed it to Indonesia, with Sukarno promising some degree of autonomy. Six years later, under Suharto, a rigged plebiscite fully annexed it to Indonesia.

Also per Counterpunch, with or without Irian Jaya/West Papua, but very much with it, it's a product of the Cold War. JFK leaned on the Dutch precisely because Sukarno cozied up to the USSR. In 1975, Ford ignored Indonesia's overrunning East Timor, abandoned to its fate by Portugal after the Salazar dictatorship was overthrown in Lisbon, because of fears/claims/worries East Timor would go Commie.

==

Another good piece from Counterpunch here is about the "forgotten Palestinians." These are the ones who are refugees in Syria, and have become entangled in Syrian civil war issues of the past decade-plus. Richard Falk notes the Assad government viewed them suspiciously after the start of the civil war, for a variety of reasons. Falk adds that the anti-anti-Assad angle of the "hard left," as he calls it, and if we're talking people like Aaron Maté, pseudoleftists is more what I call them, increases the problem.

==

Pretty Boy Trudeau is in serious trouble in the Great White North. As things stand now, he and his Liberals are going to get barbecued in the next Canadian federal election; fortunately, it's 18 months away. The Walrus has a longform, including longform fact-checking, about Trudeau's past promises vs performance and many other things, with segments from a longform interview sliced in between.

Near the end of the piece, Canadian housing prices (which are a LOT worse than most US big cities in Canada's main metro areas) get discussion. If Pretty Boy can't "get" this issue, he's sunk. 

After that, the Walrus piece notes that Trudeau will almost certainly go negative and heavily so to try to win.

Of further note, per Wiki? Almost all the Commons incumbents who are not running again are Liberals.

Two questions on my mind are:

A. Can the LDP get enough of their shit together to pass the Liberals, and, somewhat related

B. Could we see a coalition if the two block the Conservatives from a majority, but finish second and third, in whichever order?  

I assume if that happens, even if the LDP remains in No. 3, that the price of coalition is the Liberals turf Trudeau as party leader.

Winners and losers in Canada's elections

By parties, there's two clear losers and three clear winners.

The Liberals and NDP lost.

Greens, getting up to three seats, the Bloc Quebecois and the Conservatives won.

Other losers?

Justin Trudeau individually, and also NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.

Now, Singh's defenders will surely argue that he was campaigning on a very limited budget. I'll argue back that he's been party leader for four years; whose fault is it that NDP finances are so bad?

Another loser?

Once again, Canadian polls seem not as accurate as American or British ones, as an alleged late NDP "surge" proves to be not even close.

Possible winner?

The Canadian public, especially if the NDP price of a full coalition includes electoral reform. But, pre-election, it did not.

Possible winner? The reality of Canada more aligning with the American myth of Canada, given how Singh faced down some ethnic-religious animosity.

In the air to a degree? The future of the NDP. Yes, it dodged minor party status. Yes, Singh raised some new platform issues. But, what all does a social democratic party stand for in a post-industrial country?

Canadian election thoughts on the #NDP from #JoeyBats

Yes, this message comes to your from Jose Bautista! In driving in Ryan Goins and Josh Donaldson with his mighty three-run homer to win the Division Series for the Blue Jays over the Texas Rangers,  he hit the most important homer in Toronto history since Joe Carter and his 1993 World Series-ending walk-off against Mitch Williams.

So, Joey Bats earns the right to be a Photoshopped spokesman for Canada's New Democratic Party.

That said, let's get to our seriousness, which starts with the latest polling.

How the HELL did the NDP fall from first, with a lead of almost 7 percentage points less than two months ago, to third, 6.5 points behind the second-place Conservatives?

First, the Conservatives were in second then, and their polling has traveled in a narrow band.

So, while some Canadian friends say that this is fallout from the Alberta election and Conservative scaremongering over Rachel Notley's provincial win, I disagree.

This is clearly a Liberal-Conservative issue. And, it's perhaps an issue of Americanization of Canadian politics.

As I see it, the surge is primarily due to pretty boy Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, who's got about one-quarter of his dad's depth and sells about as much snake oil as his American semi-namesake, quack Kevin Trudeau.

But, it's also about the NDP. Whether NDP leader Thomas Mulcair was running not to lose, or too focused on Conservatives, or what, after that late August lead, he's the party leader, and he's the one whose more responsible than anybody, even in a parliamentary system, for fumbling that lead away.

Maybe Mulcair can pull it out. Even though he's struggling to hold his own riding, primarily over the bigotry of the Bloc Québécois over the niqab issue.

Jack Layton is surely missed. But his valedictory letter is now four years old, and it looks like the NDP will likely squander victory.

Unless progressive-minded Canadians, like some of my friends, follow Joey Bats' advice. And Bautista gets to replace Jonathan Goldsmith as The Most Interesting Man in the World.

Yes #Alberta, Yes #NDP: Lessons for the US, for Texas, for Democrats

Rachel Notley, new Alberta premier / Canadian Press

I think many of my regular readers are fairly well read not just on state news (in Texas or others of their home states), but national (usually US, but some from elsewhere) and international news.

Just to make sure, though, in case you're not aware: In what would be the equivalent of a Bernie Sanders, backed by a national liberal to left-liberal political party with true national strength, was elected governor of Texas as part of having his party win the Texas Legislature because people hated Greg Abbott and the GOP and saw through their mix of lies and penny-pinching. That's what the New Democratic Party did in Alberta.

Several thoughts.

First, this is part of why I like parliamentary government rather than a strong-president, or a strong-governor at the state level, system. It allows for true, focused electoral anger to make a difference more easily.

Second, related to that, even in a "first past the post" system, which Canada has for both provincial and federal elections (like US House seats and the British House of Commons), it allows for multiparty rather than two-party democracy.

As noted, the NDP is liberal to left liberal.

A basic primer, focused at the national level, for the unfamiliar.

The Progressive Conservatives are the latter, but not normally the former, especially under the long leadership of "Bush with a brain," current prime minister Stephen Harper. While Canada is not as explicitly religious as the US, it is more so than the UK, which is still more so than continental Europe or Australia. As a result, the PCs, unlike British Tories, the noxious National Front in France, or even Bavaria's Christian Social Union, have a fair dose of conservative religion pushers in their ranks, especially in Alberta and the prairie provinces, the party's homeland.

The Liberals are the equivalent of US neoliberal Democrats of today. Current leader Justin Trudeau will run on personal image, youth, and vague tech 2.0 type talk in Canada's federal election this fall.

The New Democratic Party is what would happen if  you combined the best of Greens (Canada also has a Green Party) and Socialists, and it eventually got national standing, which is nowhere close to happening in the US.

As for provinces? From west to east, here's my take.
1. British Columbia is like California of 20-25 years ago. I don't mean that BC is backward, but in the early 1990s, California was still purplish, and nowhere near solid blue, in American political terms.
2. Alberta is Texas. Canada's fossil fuel home, primarily for oil, but also natural gas and coal. And, the homeland of the Progressive Conservatives.
3. Saskatchewan and Manitoba are like the US Midwest that they border.
4. Ontario is like a mix of the "Rust Belt," in more western parts, and New York/Mid-Atlantic States in Greater Toronto and elsewhere in the east.
5. The Maritimes are like the New England they border, but more like Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire than Massachusetts, Connecticut or Rhode Island.
6. Oh, and I skipped one — the sui generis Quebec. Picture if the Old South, setting aside slavery, the Carolinas and Virginia, had been settled by Germans who never got over being incorporated into a British country, even as more English-speakers moved in.

OK, back to the big picture. Now you can see why I made the Bernie Sanders comparison above.

First, it shows that, in other countries, at least, "What's the Matter with Kansas" issues CAN be overcome.

Second, it shows the importance of political organization. Are you listening, Texas Dems? And outside national Democratic interlopers?

Third, as this Canadian news analysis piece shows, Alberta has other parallels with Texas. Both are no longer just oil patches. More importantly, both are no longer insular, and have had a lot of migrants come from other states or provinces for non-oil reasons.

Rather than generic "suburban voters," in statewide races, Texas Dems should be targeting immigrants to the state, and in a way that doesn't drift further right, in a Texas version of neoliberalism.

And, if Texas Dems can't or won't figure that out, Texas Greens can and should.

Fourth, politics is personal. Wendy Davis' attacks on Greg Abbott, let alone for lite guv, Leticia van de Putte vs. Dan Patrick, pulled too many punches, or decided not to throw some in the first place. Democrats need to throw sharper elbows, but smoothly at the same time. Take LVDP. We know Patrick's as combustible as a Texas fertilizer plant; even though he largely ignored her during the election, she still didn't do half of what she could have in trying to push his buttons.

Fifth, there's been talk of Democrats' "bench" here in Texas (and somewhat, nationally).

Rachel Notley would be head and shoulders above Davis, LDVP or any male candidate in Texas — including either Castro brother.

She'd also be head and shoulders above Hillary Clinton.

Sixth, and back to Canada. Can national NDP leader Thomas Mulcair build on this, with Bush with a brain's party losing in its homeland, while also, in a personable way articulating real politics to trump Trudeau's politics of personality, and take the party to victory in the federal election?

Seventh, based Notley the day after Election Day: Why do newly elected liberal leaders, whether in the US or Canada, apparently, feel the need to "reassure" dominant big businesses, when newly elected conservative leaders never feel the need to "reassure" the working class?

For that matter, why does the working class in such cases never think that it needs reassurance, or should ask for it?

And, Ms. Notley,  if it's done as part of a conscious effort to pick up centrist votes, like the New Democrats or New Labour? In the long run, it usually doesn't work.

And, since you're favorable with mining tar sands oil, how much apologetics is really needed?

What does the new polar ice low mean?

The sharp shrinkage of Arctic ice is evident versus the yellow average./NBC

If you haven't heard, the ice level in the Arctic Ocean set a record for new low, and we still have two weeks or more left until peak melt, going by past years.


Here's some likely fallout.

First, this is going to increase the push for "Northwest Passage" commercial shipping. In turn, the soot from marine diesel in the summer will further accelerate ice melt. And, that itself will be a vicious circle of feedback in the summer, in ways that may not yet be fully known to the degree Arctic currents change.

Second, that push will possibly exacerbate international tensions. Canada has made quite clear that it will keep a strict watch on border issues for ships attempting the passage, including against the Colossus of the South, the US of A.

Third, Canada, the US, Russia for sure,  possibly Norway and possibly Greenland and/or Denmark, are all going to look to further expand Arctic oil exploration, which we really don't need for multiple reasons. Add in wrangling over continental shelf issues, highlighted by Russia planting its flag, via submarine, on the North Pole seabed, and this could get dicey.

Fourth, as noted above, this will likely affect currents at some point. I'm no scientist, so I don't know how, and certainly don't know whether western Europe would be plunged into a short-term winter freeze. But, other things could be affected, like fish stocks in the Grand Banks, which aren't fantastic right now anyway.

Canada's Harper panders to Israel and Zionists

Gee what a "shock." Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper goes George W. Bush once again, this time rejecting UN resolutions to that end, by saying he cannot support U.S. President Barack Obama's saying that 1967 borders needed to be the basis and starting point for Israel-Palestinian peace talks.

Never mind that Obama's stance is:
A. Nothing really new from the U.S. standpoint and
B. Not substantive anyway, as I've blogged before, because it's full of loopholes.

Are there that many neocons in Canada? Is Harper trying to foster a movement?

O, Canada, the NDP is now on guard for you?

I hadn't blogged about the Canadian elections until now because of a mixture of forgetfulness to check the results and other things.

That said, it appears the New Democratic Party surge was real. Per the Christian Science Monitor, is Canada now a two-party system, with the Liberals serving as similar to the Liberal Democrats in Britain or the Free Democrats in Germany?

It's certainly possible.

At the same time, Stephen Harper's Conservatives were able to take an absolute majority in Parliament, for the first time in 23 years.

Even if he hadn't lost his own seat, former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff deserved to resign over the poor timing of the no-confidence vote (why not a year ago), his party's poor run and other things.

Look for Harper to become more Bush-like, for NDP leader Jack Leyton to exploit parliamentary opportunities in opposition better than Iggy did, and for that and by-elections to force the next parliamentary ballot in about .... 30 months.

But, will it be first-past-the-post, still, like the U.S.? A CBC column wonders if, should Britain adopt alternative voting today (the "electoral reform" the Conservatives and David Cameron promised Nick Clegg and his Lib Dems) whether Canada might follow suit?

A seismic political shift in Canada?

A month ago, after Liberals and New Democrats in Ottawa combined to give Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper a backdoor no-confidence vote, I predicted Conservatives would win an absolute majority, mainly because Liberals looked weak and ineffectual.

Well, they still do.

But not the suddenly surging New Democrats.

A new Angus Reid poll done in partnership with the Toronto Star and La Presse puts Stephen Harper’s Conservatives at 35 per cent, the NDP close behind at 30 per cent, the Liberals at 22 per cent, the Bloc Québécois at 7 per cent and the Green Party at 5 per cent.

In Ontario, the Conservatives lead at 37 per cent, the Liberals are at 30 per cent and the NDP are just three points back at 27 per cent. In Quebec, the NDP are at 38 per cent, replacing the traditional front-runners, the Bloc Québécois. The Bloc are second with 29 per cent, the Liberals at 16 per cent and Conservatives at 14 per cent.

NDP leader Jack Layton campaigns./Photo Montreal Gazette.

Off the top of my head, that makes it look like the election could come down to British Columbia.

Unfortunately, in provincial elections there last year, the NDP for narrow political reasons opposed some renewable energy provisions supported by the Conservatives, who went on to win. Whether the NDP can recover or not, I don't know.

More on polling volatility from NOW Toronto:

(O)ne poll is indicating the Conservative will win only 133 seats; another goes as high as 162 (155 is a majority) for the Conservatives even though it projects 86 seats for the NDP.

In either case, the NDP looks like it will at least finish a solid second.

It also looks like Harper's Conservatives have learned another trick from the GOP: vote caging.

That said, I'll venture a new prediction: if the Liberals finish third, no matter who is first or who is second, Michael Ignatieff is out as party leader.

Speaking of, he's worried enough about the apparent NDP surge to attack NDP leader Jack Layton.

$5 gallon gasoline next?

We're already at $4 in selected U.S. spots. And, Peak Oil, not just the unrest in Libya, is a cause, it seems.

"Peak Oil" only comes strongly into play if demand is pushing upward fairly rapidly.

And it is.

China has already passed the U.S. in coal use. By 2020, it may pass us in oil consumption.

Since we may well have hit "Peak Oil" three years ago, if China doubles its oil use in a decade or less, that will inevitably put upward pressure on oil, and thus gasoline, prices.

In Canada, where gas prices are fairly similar to those in the U.S., gas is at $5 a gallon in liter equivalents already. That's leading to talk of gas at $2 a liter, or about $7.50 a gallon, being just a year or so away.

In case you think any of that is due to cheap Canadian money, the loonie is trading with the U.S. dollar at rough parity.

So, we could see gas at $5 a gallon in the U.S. heartland a year or so from now, and $6 a gallon in places like New York City and San Francisco.

Now, the one silver lining? Per Rubin's column from Canada, this could mean, if not the end, at least a partial reversal of globalization. He touches on that more in a book, Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization. And, he's not alone. Walmart, when oil prices hit $147 in 2008, was already talking about how some of its supply chain might have to move back from overseas.

That said, U.S. workers wouldn't benefit, in many cases. Mexican maquiladoras would see new spurts ... if U.S. companies could stomach the overhead of armed guards against drug lords.

That then said, such actions could spur Mexico into further disintegration, with major manufacturers extending their security forces outside their factories and creating de facto statelets.

At the same time, don't forget that hear in the U.S. President Obama refused to tackle the need for more regulation of commodities derivatives as part of financial regulation reform. If Peak Oil is here, Enron of a decade ago will seem like nothing.

Canadian contempt for Harper is likely to fizzle

Doorknob, I love parliamentary governments.

Including the one to the north of the U.S., in Ottawa.

The Canadian Parliament, in a historic move, has made a parliamentary finding of contempt against Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The vote also is, in essence, a no-confidence vote, triggering parliamentary elections.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper faces Parliament.

However, Canada's economy is growing faster than the U.S.'s (whose isn't, these days?) and Harper will surely run on that.

The opposition used the maneuver to avoid voting against Harper's budget, another sign that it doesn't want to campaign on the economy, but rather Harper's personal style as prime minister.

And, how strong is that economy? Per Bloomberg's story on the vote, the Canadian dollar is trading at parity with the U.S. greenback.

Canada is in its seventh year of minority government, namely because the opposition parties can't get their collective acts together.

And, early on, I'll give 50-50 odds that Harper survives again, whether with a minority or not. All he has to do is gain seats, even if not a majority, and watch the tripartate opposition of Liberals, Bloc Quebecois, and New Democratic Party flail away at each other.

This is the same opposition that had opportunities to hold formal no-confidence votes more than a year ago and always shied away from that, after all.

And, the gun-shy attitude was lead by current Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who didn't sound incredibly inspiring in discussing opposition issues after the vote. The NDP's Layton is ill and I don't know how well other top NDP folks can carry that party's banner should he be forced to stand down for most of the campaign.

As for Harper? For American readers, I liken him to a cross between Reagan and Bush II. He has W's sometimes "challenged," often blunt straight-talking political attitude, but a bit of Reaganesque Teflon. Like both, he's lucky in his opponents, so far at least.

Canada, banks, housing, liberal non-skepticism

Truthout is the latest batch of non-skeptical liberal to left-liberal types to fall in love with Canada's banks and financial system.

You can't have it both ways, unskeptical left-liberals.

You cannot have Canada-style banking with no bank closures, a high homeownership rate AND tight mortgage lending standards without other aspects of Canadian housing you don't mention, including a smaller house size, no mortgage refinancing let alone HELOC-type refinancing, etc.

And, you can't have this in isolation without addressing income disparity, etc.

You can't have it in isolation from Americans of all sorts of income levels wanting McMansions.

In short, you can't get the banking system of Canada imported to the U.S. in isolation.

And, there's no guarantee, even if you could eliminate the mortgage interest deduction and change other U.S. laws, that you could change American mindsets that much. I'd rather doubt it, in fact.

Oh, Canada, Copenhagen’s eyes are on thee…

Because, even more than the U.S. or China,
you are a climate treaty wrecker.

NAFTA being used as lever to force private healthcare in Canada

Boy, of all the toxic fallout from NAFTA, this has to be high on the list, possibly the highest north of the US border.

‘Three amigos’ summit has US-Mexico sidebar, too

Nothing major in results is expected from the North American summit, which will focus on drug and gang issues, with climate change and swine flu also on the table.

A sidebar US-Mexico talk covered Mexican trucks coming into the US and US drug war aid, but with little progress.

Both our neighbors are worried about recession-driven protectionism. Obama was “Wink, wink” on this with Canada in the campaign; the presidential Obama is a free-trader, without generally addressing enviro and labor issues.

In other words, he’s a neolib. Alert Frank Rich. Expect him to get a modest increase in Mexican shorter-haul trucks now and more in the 2010 lame-duck Congress.
-END-