Apolitical Staples

I’m starting to wonder if it wouldn’t be better for the conservative movement in the long run to let the Liberals govern as the statist assholes that they are and stop tainting the brand chasing a majority that won’t likely happen for at least a generation. Build from the bottom, as it were. The spectacle of the CPC pandering to the average infantilized “progressive”, socialist-by-default voter is becoming rather painful to watch. What is it getting us, really? Straight talk on the AGW/Kyoto fiasco? Broad, deep tax cuts? De-regulation? An end to corporate welfare? Any of these things likely to show up under a CPC majority that want nothing so much as to remain a mojority? I don’t know. I know Harper is an incrementalist, but I assumed the incremental steps would be toward conservatism. Am I missing something?

Last week, did Ipsos have the Tory-Lib spread at 10 points? Does anyone remember?

The Liberals might try a no-confidence manoeuvre on Monday when McGuinty is moving a concurrence motion on an environment committee report.

However, with Bloc leader Duceppe getting set to move to Quebec City (witness Boisclair’s pre-emptive strike on RDI), both the Liberals and the NDP can bravely support that (or any similar no-confidence) motion knowing the Bloc will not. Layton also has an opposition day on Thursday when he might also try to take some sort of a “brave” stand.

I wonder what the SES and Decima numbers will show because Ipsos tends to poll the Tories higher than the others. SES is apparently releasing a poll tomorrow.

I am also deeply concerned about that Col. Noonan (sp?) story. Usually, such a report would have gone all the way up the military chain of command, and almost certainly would have been copied to the Canadian Embassy in Afghanistan. It could be ugly.

who the hell are they calling on these polls anyway??? I have only ever been called once and the questions I remember were so loaded against the Conservatives I simply hung up the phone mid way through after basically saying as much to the person on the other end of the phone line and telling them they should be ashamed to be in such an orginization. I’m sick and tired of giving away almost 1/2 of my paycheck every month to support a nanny state while making 2 mortgage payments and supporting a family in Vancouver…all while Natives get more money, welfare scabs get more money, politicians vote themselves 29% pay increases, Doctors get more money, Gov’t Unions get more money, Civil servants get more money, prisoners have more money spent on them to improve their standard of living, and now political parties want to bring foriegn detainies to Canada to look after them while the war on terror goes on in afganistan….well…all that money comes from people who generate this country’s wealth like me… those people working in the system are just passing the money back and forth to the gov’t… when are the 30% of us that actually generate the 100% of the wealth going to wake up and say enough is enough and take our country back?

It’s Layton that should bring the non-confidence vote to the House. All we see now is Baird gleefully kicking sand in the faces of the Opposition Parties (mostly the Liberals). His latest digs are about how the price of gasoline would increase 60 % if Pablo Rodriguez’s Bill C288 (Kyoto Implemention Act) were in force.

I’ve played and watched many games, and have always believed that the best strategy for the underdog (NDP) is to take more risks than the favorite (Libs). If Jack follows the safe route (i.e. talking incessantly about the House co-operating) then Jack gets nowhere. It’s time to play the game of “environmental chicken”. Force Dion (and his caucus’s) hand, and spin the results in your favor. And Jack should do it as a surprise, give the Libs as little time as possible to discuss their counter-strategy.

Go for it Jack ! The likely spin out of it will be Dion saying “Canadians don’t want an election”. Jack can counter that “Dion was never serious about saving the planet from increases in GHGs”. Jack then gets to wear the Kyoto green jacket. Dion gets to wear the blowhard, weak, all-talk-no-action label. Lizzie May will also have some explaining to do regarding Dion’s wimp-out on the environment.

Canada saw the worst casualty numbers since the Korean war, 2 weeks of relentless, gang-up style (actors from Canada & the US screaming ‘enviro fraud’), hammering of PMSH and the Conservative Government, on their 2 weakest files, and resulting in their worst performance so far,… and the best the Libs can do is TIE….!!

I’d call that good news for the New Government of Canada!

Ah, do the poor CPC’s feel ganged up on? Oh, boo hoo. Like they’ve never done this themselves.

Mr. Can Take a Punch has had his moment to prove it and not doing well at all.

Cry, sob - they’re picking on me.

Wilson 61,

Who says the Tories have bottomed? They don’t have many cards left to play, as they blew the whole wad on the budget. I recall hearing that there won’t be much more money to spend in the next budget, so the good news for Harper et al is pretty much all used up.

bcl, And you would know what cards PMSH is holding? Do you actually think that there is no ‘plan’, 5 priorites and the Cons are done governing Canada?

MSM and opp parties were counting on the Afghan mission and the enviro plan to sink PMSH.
It didn’t happen. So what can Libs come up with that PMSH can not trump?

A better Green plan? Let’s see a costed plan!

A better Afghan prisoner policy? We NOW have the best of all NATO nations.

A better Equalization Formula? Libs gonna give Williams what he wants, over Ontario objections?

A better Quebec alternative? Libs would campaign against ‘feds staying out of prov jurisdictions’?

Wilson brings up just a few inconvenient truths for Dion. Here’s some more …

The days go by, Harper governs, Dion talks. Harper flys around on the Challenger Jets, making announcements, looking Prime-Ministerial. Dion talks to university students, the homeless and child-care advocates.

CPC members donate more money. LPC funds dry up. Too much money going to Kennedy and Martha, you know. Fewer and fewer Lib MPs show up for work in the House of Commons. The “dream team” looks awfully thin.

Like the Rolling Stones said ….”Time, time, time is on my side, yes it is …” Or like Osama bin-Laden said, “when people have a choice between a weak horse and a strong horse, they choose the strong horse”

a) I wouldn’t sweat any of these polls. As much as people like to get excited about them, they’re all roughly within the margin of error, and say nothing about the setting up of a ballot question.

b) As of yet, the best Dion can do is say that Harper doesn’t deserve a majority. I see no other ballot question that sets up in his favour.

c) Yes, I think the Bloc is a wildcard on the environment. However, they have essentially been in line with the Liberals on this file, whereas it’s been Jack and Baird who have shown a willingness to compromise.

I actually think that Duceppe will bolt for the PQ because he believes Layton will eventually provide cover for Harper in saving us from an election on the environment. It’s how this file has been developing all along.

It was Layton who saved the Clean Air Act and stressed the need for action and compromise. It was the Liberals and Bloc who kept thumping Kyoto, with the former passing that silly motion to meet our targets.

I believe that Dion has no choice but to press the environment as a matter of confidence.

The two parties that don’t want an election on the environment are the Tories and the NDP. They help each other out, they skunk all the other parties on an issue they thought was ripe for them.

As I’ve said along, ad nauseum, I think that’s how it’s going to play out.

more exciting news!

It’s hard to say which is worse news for Republicans: that George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation, or that he seems to be dragging every ‘08 Republican presidential candidate down with him. But According to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, the public’s approval of Bush has sunk to 28 percent, an all-time low for this president in our poll, and a point lower than Gallup recorded for his father at Bush Sr.’s nadir. The last president to be this unpopular was Jimmy Carter who also scored a 28 percent approval in 1979. This remarkably low rating seems to be casting a dark shadow over the GOP’s chances for victory in ‘08.

I wonder what affect the Doan idiocy will have on next week’s polls?

I do not feel that we will see much more from the Conservatives on this sitting. They will try to finish the Session strong with possibly the Law and Order issue, but I suspect the next battle will be laid during the summer and a new set of priorities and ministers will open the fall session.
The did take a kicking over the last couple of weeks, but nothing was lethal. Danny Williams is singing to the choir (very little sympathy in ROC). The Bloc has to refocus and Duceppe may have just set his summer agenda (stab Boisclair in the back) Jack has to kneecap the Greens and Dion needs to bring forth arguments to what (outside of the environment) he can offer Canadians.
It ain’t over for the CPC, its just the end of a period.

So what can Libs come up with that PMSH can not trump?

A better Green plan? Let’s see a costed plan!

On behalf of all of the Canadians who are getting reamed by the taxman every year, and who are going to get reamed even deeper so that Harper can trump the Liberals (so he can win a majority and score loadsadough for himself and all the party hacks, insiders, donors and all of their hangers-on), I hope the Tory green plan “costed you” your job and you end up picking bits of plastic bags and broken fluorescent light bulbs out of trash at a Tory-crony owned waste handling plant. Nothing personal.

A better Afghan prisoner policy? We NOW have the best of all NATO nations.

You want a better Afghan prisoner policy? Quit wasting public money trying to build a New Trudeaupia in central Asia.

A better Equalization Formula? Libs gonna give Williams what he wants, over Ontario objections?

Equalization is nothing but organized theft on a nationwide scale. You get zero points for stealing and redistributing money “smarter” than the Liberals.

A better Quebec alternative? Libs would campaign against ‘feds staying out of prov jurisdictions’?

“Staying out of” must be a code-word for “showering provincial governments with billions of dollars of cash and then not giving a hoot about how and where it’s spent because giving a hoot is not in the Consitution”. If the government sticks its hand in your pocket, extracts half the money and then slips the money here and there to whoever it wants, they are not “staying out of” anything. And speaking of jurisdictions … I really wish more of you would start thinking of jurisdictions as mostly belonging to private persons and their private property, and stop thinking of jurisdictions as federal/provincial/territorial tax farms owned by politicians.

The constant refrain that “the Liberals are worse” is pretty weak. If a store in my neighborhood was being looted by a mob, I’d expect a little bit more from would-be community leaders than to see them organizing the mob to loot radios and then excuse themselves by saying that “the other guys would be stealing TVs”. Nothing compels anyone to steal, and nothing prevents anyone from condemning theft. Even if they think that the majority is asking for it.

“I’m starting to wonder if it wouldn’t be better for the conservative movement in the long run to let the Liberals govern as the statist assholes that they are and stop tainting the brand chasing a majority that won’t likely happen for at least a generation. Build from the bottom, as it were.”

As a long-time westerner, I can say that conservatives do build from the bottom. See Mr. Ed’s comments above.

quote mortgage interest