This Week’s News
Kamala and her VP Walz sat down with CNN for an interview last week and like most events in this campaign it was a big nothingburgher. Ok, let me rephrase that; it had no impact on the numbers and the Democrats held her up to be the next Cicero/Lincoln while the Republicans thought it proved she’s a moron who’d get stuck in a revolving door and who probably needs help drinking from a sippy cup.
I’m closer to the Republican’s exaggerated opinion than the Democrat’s one but as I said last week, all she needed to do was not say “we finally beat Medicare” and she’d be fine. So, it’s a win for the Harris campaign. A very low bar win, but a win, nonetheless.
Welcome to Canada!
I spend a lot of time in my weekly news roundup talking about the upcoming US election because…well, because it is the biggest news story of the year and effects everyone on the planet, one way or another. Canadians are no exception to this statement. In fact, one could argue that next to American’s, no one (except maybe Mexicans) are impacted more by US elections than Canadians. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (father of the current crook, I mean PM) once said that living next the US “is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” The US is Canada’s largest trading partner accounting for 63.4% of Canada’s worldwide trade. However, while Canada is the 1st or 2nd (it fluctuates) largest trading partner of the US, it only accounts for 14.8% of US total trade.
This is a long winded and roundabout way of saying; “I’m going to talk about Canadian politics today.” Mostly.
Sorry, we’re closed – “With many voters blaming the country’s typical liberal immigration laws for contributing to shortages and high prices for housing” and U.S. lawmakers reportedly calling to harden America’s northern border, “the Canadian government has started to reject more visitors and temporary residents,” turning away 3700 people per month in 2024. At the same time, the number of approved study and work permits has also been reduced. As usual the Liberals are attempting to frame this as a proactive effort when in reality it is about 12 months behind voter sentiment and a desperate move to prevent an historic beating in the next election.
Jagmeet Singh grows a backbone – ok, not really. I’m sure he’d love it if everyone thought this, but not even the average Canadian voter is dumb enough to think this. As the Liberals did not win enough seats to form a majority government in 2021, “Singh and Trudeau reached the agreement in March 2022, committing the Liberals to implement several NDP priorities such as dental care and pharmacare in exchange for the NDP caucus supporting the Liberals on key votes like budgets.” Singh has spent much of the last year complaining about the Liberal government while continuing to support it. The end of the “supply and confidence” agreement, as it is known, could mean that the Liberal government could fall soon but I think it unlikely for one simple reason, Singh’s pension doesn’t come into effect until February 2025. If he forces an election before then and fails to get reelected, he stands to lose “a potential lifetime payout of $2.3 million.”
It's far more likely that this is a way to “poke” the electorate and see if it moves the polls. If the election doesn’t occur until Oct 2025 it also means the NDP could spend the next year complaining about the Liberals without having to worry about the (true) allegation that they’re propping them up.
What it most certainly isn’t is evidence that Singh has suddenly found a moral foundation. He remains a “champagne socialist” who will do and say anything to get ahead. Here is a picture of Canada’s leading “socialist” who has spent much of the last year complaining about “corporate greed” and that “the Liberals are too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests to fight for people.”
Singh is the living embodiment of this meme:
Yes, Singh is bad, but is he “Trudeau bad?” – Sure, Singh is pretty much everything that is wrong with politicians, self-serving, hypocritical, and two faced, but there’s one accusation he’ll never have to face, that he’s the worst prime minister in Canadian history (God help us if the NDP ever win an election). Trudeau Junior, however, has accomplished this feat. “Research Co.’s poll confirms what many Canadians feel about Trudeau. They don’t respect his leadership. They dislike his ideas and policies. They don’t particularly like him. They want him gone.”
Election Tracking
I like following politics. Well, maybe “like” is the wrong word. I used to like following it 15 or 20 years ago, now I do it because it’s important. It frustrates me more than it did 20 years ago, and I can’t decide if it’s because it’s become more corrupt or if it’s always been this way and I’ve just become older and more cynical. Regardless, I can’t seem to stop following it. However, even a political junky like myself is getting sick of this campaign. Let’s just get it over already so we can get on with the riots (and I’m only half joking).
This week Harris dropped by a penny and Trump moved up two cents but Harris still has a solid lead on the PredictIt leader board.
Harris -1 cents
Trump +2 cents
Bettors seem to have a different opinion than the investors on PredictIt. The betting market has Harris increasing her lead by 1.6%. Current odds to win are:
Harris – 50.5 (+0.8%)
Trump – 48.2 (-0.8%)
Kamala saw her lead shrink a tiny amount on the aggregated polling chart. While her numbers increased by 0.1%, Trumps increased by 0.2%. Ya, there’s not a lot happening here either.
Do I even need to say it? Ok, no change on the Electoral College predictions map.
Once again, it’s obvious that American is divided almost 50/50 and who will win is completely up in the air.
Canadian Election Tracking
In preparation for the end of the US election campaign, I think it’s time we started preparing for a Canadian election. Jagmeet Singh just ended the "supply and confidence" agreement with the Liberals which had the NDP supporting them in confidence votes. This means it’s quite possible that Canada will have a fall election instead of one in 2025. Another reason to start following the Canadian election is that for the first time that I can remember, I’ve had more Canadians sign up for this Substack than Americans, so I’d like to show them my appreciation by making them suffer through a weekly look at the polls and Canadian political news. You’re welcome!
This will be a work in progress but to start we’ll just take a look at some polls.
Source: https://338canada.com/federal.htm
Source: https://nanos.co/?s=Preferred+Prime+Minister
The Conservatives have a sizeable lead and Poilievre has a 15-point lead over Trudeau on the Nanos weekly preferred Prime Minister tracking. We’ll see what, if any impact, Singh’s recent moves have on the race.
What I’m Reading
The great(?) thing about Twitter is that just when you think it can’t get weirder it does. When the “politics is a pendulum that swings back and forth” crashes into revisionist history which has long been the bailiwick of the left you get a situation where the crazies on the right say to the crazies on the left “you think you’re insane, step aside and I’ll show you insane.” Queue Tucker Carlson…
Carlson posted an interview with Darry Cooper on September 2nd referring to him as possibly “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.” I have a master’s in modern US History, and I’ve never heard of the guy. That in itself means little. There are a lot of historians out there and I don’t know all (or probably most) of them. I do, however, know most of the really well-known ones and Cooper is not one of them. Again, that of itself is not enough to say he isn’t a great historian. Plenty of the famous ones are to put it delicately, ideologues (to put it more honestly, they’re trash who couldn’t think their way out of a paper bag). The evidence that he is either dishonest or, well, a nutter is that he argues that Winston Churchill rather than Hitler is “the real villain of the Second World War” as Churchill declined a peace offer made by Hitler in 1940 and insisted on continuing the fight.
So, what we’re witnessing is the two extremes converging. On the left, revisionists argue that the allies weren’t the good guys because…well people died and bad things happened and the winners were largely white and…well, think of the Hamas campus protesters and you’ll get the idea. On the right we’re now seeing arguments that the Allies were the bad guys because they could have prevented a lot of deaths if they’d just given Hitler what he wanted because…well, he wasn’t really that bad a guy.
At the moment I have to give the “stupidity” race to the woke right. Sadly, I don’t think they’ll keep that trophy for long.
Non-Political Item(s) of the Week
My favorite conspiracy theory used to be the one that said that the earth was really flat. I loved it because it made no sense to me. I get the conspiracies focused on the moon landing (faked as part of the cold war) and the Kennedy assassination (mafia and/or CIA revenge) as each has some form of logic to why “the truth” is being hidden. The flat earth conspiracy on the other hand didn’t seem to have a purpose. What exactly is the point? Who gains from hiding “the truth?” I found out eventually that there is a “logic” behind it which made me a little sad as now the flat earthers are just like every other cuckoo out there.
Good news, though, I now have a new favorite although I’m somewhat disappointed to learn that it’s a satirical conspiracy theory. It’s “birds aren’t real” and it “claims that all birds in the United States were exterminated by the federal government between 1959 and 1971 and replaced by lookalike drones used by the government to spy on citizens.”
I love it! I love it so much that I think that those saying it’s a “satirical conspiracy theory” are in fact just part of a larger conspiracy to hide the truth from us. So, when you see a bird…well I don’t know, be extra good. Treat them like Santa Clause and remember the government is making lists!
My Podcast Recommendation(s) of the Week
For the second week in a row, I’m going to recommend a podcast from the Joe Rogan Experience. This one isn’t quite as good as last week’s with Peter Thiel but it’s another one that covers multiple topics so go for it!
The Joe Rogan Experience - #2195 – Andrew Huberman
I’m going to give you two for the price of one this week because another podcast I follow, and which hasn’t aired anything in quite some time (or at least nothing I like) poked it’s head up for air last week. This podcast discusses science fiction novels, movies, etc. and I found this week’s to have an interesting premise: what if there was a vaccine for aging?
Alienating the Audience - Stay Your Age Right Now Forever