Stephen Harper and Economy

Up to last week Harper has been stating that the fundamentals of our economy are sound. Maybe he and his corporate friends are fundamentally doing well. However, he does not fully realize how average Joe and Jane on Main Street are coping – people are losing jobs, inflation is up and people are losing their savings, in particular those who had invested in the stock market including RRSPs and funds for their children's education and other nest eggs.

Now Harper has somewhat changed his tune and said that the World financial crisis and US financial meltdown may impact us, but he still does not understand or does not want to understand the economic downturn in Canada because of the financial meltdown. I have seen on TV snippets of his platform and it is not reassuring. Danny Williams’ ABC (Anyone but Conservatives) has started to make more and more sense.

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Sarah Palin and John McCain unveil themselves

Sarah Palin and John McCain have dived for the gutter. Maybe San Francisco should get ready for their statues at their soon to be named George W. Bush Sewage Treatment Plant. These two, McCain and Palin, are swimming in such sewage.

The McCain campaign is becoming desperate as it is falling in the polls, so they jumped right into the raw sewage. Palin has said that Barack Obama is pallin' with Bill Ayers who was accused of violent activism as part of the Weather Underground in the 1960s, when Obama was only 8 years old. Bill Ayers is now a university professor and has only a passing acquaintance with Obama. McCain is also questioning "where Obama came from." This is a subtle hint that Obama's father was from Kenya (ie. that Obama is "not really" American). Obama was born in Hawaii and brought up in the United States first by his mother an later by his grandparents. This is the newest low that McCain and Palin have hit. Would they go any lower? Just keep watching when they fall further in the polls.

Palin is forgetting that her own husband was pallin' with Alaska separatists and that her pastor is a self-proclaimed witch-doctor, there is video of this pastor ridding Palin of witches. Moreover there is Trooper-gate. As well, John McCain is forgetting his Keating 5 association and pastors John Hagee and Rod Parsley, his supporters until he was forced to renounce them, who have made incendiary comments against Jews and Muslims respectively.

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Sarah Palin, Straight to the Gutter

You have heard of "Straight Talk", John McCain now has a new slogan, "Straight to the Gutter."

Keith Olbermann presents a great Special Comment on Sarah Palin's role in McCain's new gutter politics:

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$700 Billion Wall Street Bail Out and Its Secret of Passage

Hank Paulson, the Secretary of the Treasury, may know alot about Wall Street but he knows very little about the US Congress or legislators in general. He wrote a simple 3-page document which any legislator could read and understand - of course with the exception of John McCain. When it is so easily comprehensible watch it, it will fail and it was defeated in the House of Representative.

Long live the legal drafters. The Senate handed the document over to them and they easily expanded it to over 450 pages and increased the amount from $700 billion to $800 billion. All set. Very few can now read it all and understand it. Now they will understand a few scary words from their colleagues on the danger of not passing it. Bingo, both the Senate and the House of Representatives passed it with sizeable majorities. Seen the process before, works almost every time.

Now did you notice that over one trillion dollars (yes trillion with "T") have been spent on the Iraq war if you put all the costs together? Those trillion dollars were taken out of American economy. That money could have been in the hands of Main Street folks who would have been able to take care of their obligations including paying mortgages and other loans, there would have been no crisis. Now there has to be a way to make up this bail out. Also to hide the biggest blunder of century, if not in history, to engage in a very expensive and unwinnable war.

Because of this big screw up of the US government, Europeans and others are paying the price too because they heavily invested in US financial markets considering them to be solid investments. Not so. The Germans have bailed out some financial institutions, so did Britain and France and other European countries are looking to rescue themselves from the financial crisis as well.

Then we have Stephen Harper who like McCain still thinks that the fundamentals of our economy are sound. The Toronto Stock Exchange’s reaction and job losses reveal that the bottom may be falling out and remedial action is badly needed. Harper has no plan or platform but still wants you to elect him and give him a majority. Can Canadians take that risk? Think about it.

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Sarah Palin - Vice Presidential Debate

In case you missed the Saturday Night Live skit, here it is in full:

UPDATE: Some people are having problems loading the video, you can click here to visit another site and try to load the video.

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Julie Couillard is back

Julie Couillard’s book "My Story" is released. According to some reviews, it has some good stuff in it. Such as Maxime Bernier telling her that Stephen Harper was too fat, that he asked her to throw the confidential material pertaining to defence documents into the trashcan, and alot more good stuff.

Should Maxime Bernier and Harper and Co. be worried during this election season? It depends how the media deals with this book and how opposition parties utilize the tasty information. Nonetheless it makes the election season more exciting.

Click here to read the story.

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Sarah Palin and Joe Biden Debate

Some CONS, including McSame, say that Sarah Palin did a knock out job at the VP debate. I saw the whole debate and saw no knock out punch by her. She could not answer many direct questions and took refuge in saying that she was a hockey mom, and asked to let her get together with Regular Joe 6paks and produce alot of energy in Alaska. A high school student with some debating ability would have done better. The only thing she did not do is burst out in tears and leave the stage. Maybe that is the standard CONS are using to assess her.

Biden did exceptionally well. He answered the questions superbly and his experience and talent shone through.

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“The View” by Danny Williams, and ABC (Anyone but Conservative)

Danny Williams has the ABC (Anybody But Conservatives) campaign against Stephen Harper. Maybe he is on to something. He did deal with Harper face to face and very few get that chance. Is it possible that he knows something that we all should pay attention to? Williams does have alot of credibility as he is a straight talker who has a very high approval ratings in his home province of Newfoundland.

Danny Williams told Steve Murphy of CTV Atlantic that when he confronted Harper on his promise of an off-shore resources deal, Harper looked straight in his eyes and said he did not need the votes of Newfoundland and Labrador. That is quite rude to say to a Premier of any province, especially after breaking his word on the Atlantic Accord.

I watched French Debate and parts of English debate, I do not think Harper did so well. He kept smiling and on economy he said Canada is not the U.S. and repeated the John McCainesque quote of "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." Can you believe this guy? On Thursday the Toronto Stock Exchange took a 814 point hit which does not look good. Yes, geographically we are located north of the US and we are not the US, but anything which happens in the US travels to the North like pollution from smoke stacks in Ohio. This false assurance by Harper is not very comforting. People lost their savings, especially those who have RRSPs up to 20+% on average, and he continues to tell us that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" (even McCain ultimately admitted there was a crisis, but Harper out-Republicaned him by not admitting this). Maybe Harper means that the economy is strong for him and his rich friends.

I think Danny Williams is right, that Harper cannot be trusted.

In the English debate Harper was repeatedly asked where his platform was which is not available yet. Jack Layton threw a zinger when he said, "Are you hiding the platform under your sweater?" Yes where is his platform and how is he going to deal with the current economic crisis which is getting worse by the day?

Stephane Dion gave a strong performance in the French language debate and held his own in the English debate. Elizabeth May performed strongly in both debates and gave new visibility to her party.

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Stephen Harper: the Aussie factor

Poor Harper! He was just hypnotized by John Howard as he has been by George W. Bush and John McCain. No spin by Harper, it is all the fault of the speechwriter so fire the speechwriter. What a bull! When a leader makes a speech in public or in Parliament he/she takes ownership. When John F. Kennedy said, "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" we attribute these remarks to Kennedy and not to his speechwriter.

Harper will say Kennedy’s speechwriters were good. So if his speechwriters are bad then whose fault is it? It means he was a poor judge of character when he hired these people. The buck stops at his doorstep. If he cannot surround himself with competent people then the fault lies with him. He continues to blame his misfortunes on his staff or on his caucus. He is the leader, why does he not take responsibility. It is a shame that John Howard's speech was plagiarized. Pathetic.

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Stephen Harper's Funda-mentals?

Let's say you’re in a ship. The sea is very rough and the ship is shaking uncontrollably, the ship is in disrepair - disrepair because of the neglect by the captain and the crew. What do you think could happen? If you said that the ship could sink then you’re a realist. However if the captain keeps telling you not to worry, does this captain have any credibility? Canada is a small ship in the vast ocean of the world economy and tethered to a bigger ship called the U.S. which is in serious turbulent waters itself. Is the captain of Canadian ship not being irresponsible to continue assuring us that "everything is ok"? Should this captain and his crew not be fired? That captain currently happens to be Stephen Harper.

Harper has completely gone McCaniac (recent revelations show that in the past he took his cues from Pro-Bush Australian Prime Minister John Howard on the Iraq war) and keeps saying that the fundamentals of our economy are sound. We are in the same roller coaster ride as Wall Street. Early this week, when the Dow Jones plunged 778 points, the Toronto Stock Exchange dropped 850 points. I believe it was Pierre Trudeau who said that if U.S sneezes we get pneumonia. How can Harper say that we are going to be all right? Especially when he has patterned our economy after the U.S which is less regulations, lower taxes for the rich and big corporations and unbridled capitalism. Moreover our biggest trading partner is the U.S. We need to change the course and fire the current captain and crew.

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