I grew up going to Sunday school and church every week —  a Christian denomination that was big on humility and where parishioners didn’t much wear their religion on their sleeves except by quietly living a virtuous life. 

My father was a lay leader in our church, and the pastor would join the family for lunch every now and then. My parents would put us to bed with “good-night prayers,” and, as a young child, I would sometimes continue to chat with the heavens after Mom or  Dad tucked me in and turned out the lights.

Despite what appeared to be a “good start”— I was a skeptic by my late teens,  and by my thirties I stopped going to Christmas services and church weddings because whenever the pastor spoke as if he and I had a shared belief in a magical father in heaven, it weirded me out.

I am officially a long-lapsed Christian 

Today most of the people in my life are as lapsed as I am. We still strive for a virtuous life, but do not believe in a Lord in Heaven.  A few people in my circle of friends and relatives are still attached to the denomination where I grew up, and — as they were taught — they quietly practice generous lives of piety and kindness.

Another few have left the church, but not because they were skeptical about the whole Jesus and God set of beliefs. No — they left the church for the harsher, more aggressive Christianity of the evangelical movement.

Evangelicals are always on the prowl for souls to save.  They look for people to “bring to Jesus” with the determination and purpose of a horny teenager looking for… you know what I mean.  They are especially eager to bring lapsed lost lambs like me back into the “light of Jesus.”

I always find their aggression discomforting.  Offers to “pray for me” when I’m not looking for prayers make me squirm.  I am caught between wanting to be polite on one hand and giving in to the impulse to yell “Will you please just S.T.F.U. about God and Jesus and religion… I do not ever want to talk about or hear about God, prayers, Jesus or the Bible from you ever!”

Well I no longer feel uncomfortable telling them off — because I can do so without using F-bombs or allowing myself to lose my temper.

Now I just calmly tell them“Any religion that gets in bed with an unrepentant, flagrant sinner like Donald Trump is a false religion that has no respect for piety, virtue, kindness, truth or love.”

I continue “If Christianity wants to appeal to people like me... if Christianity wants to convert people like me, it first needs to renounce Donald Trump, not celebrate him.  Until it does, do not speak to me about Jesus or God or the bible and do not tell me you are praying for me.”

At best — this puts individual evangelists in a position where they have to choose: they can keep trying to do missionary work on me, or they can celebrate Trump… but they can’t have both.  If they want to talk to me me, they gotta dump Trump.

At worst — (and this has happened) — after drawing this line in the sand, even if they don’t move away from Trump, they do actually S.T.F.U.  I never hear another word from them about religion and all this accomplished without me even losing my temper! 

I caught a snip of a Scarborough rant this morning, and the man was talking sh*t about universal health insurance (you know — the kind everyone in Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan etc, etc takes for granted).

Scarborough said Americans do not want health care where “you have to call a bureaucrat before you can take your kid to the doctor ar 3:00am.”

I live in Canada (which has had universal health care for about 50 years), and I have taken my kids for emergency medical care at 3:00am and I have three words for Mr. Morning Joe :
   Bullshit!
    Bullshit!
   Bullshit!

I have never, ever had to “call a bureaucrat” for approval before going to the doctor for me, for my kids or for my wife (who has been treated for cancer twice) — at 3:00am or any other time of day.

In Canada there are no “gatekeeper” bureaucrats to phone — there is no Office of Giving Patients Preapproved Permission for Treatment in the Canadian system. You just show your governent-insurance “Care Card,” and you are covered for whatever ails you.  The doctor bills the health insurance plan online after treatment but does not need pre-approval. The plan pays the doctor, and there is no co-pay (or doctor’s bill) for the patient

You know who does have to get permission from a bureaucrat before getting health care?  Americans on company plans like those offered at MSNBC.  The doctor’s office needs to check that you are “in-network,” whether you are still working your way through deductibles, whether you need to co-pay.  Canadians do not face delay (and possible denial-of-benefits) while a health-insurance bureaucrat determines coverage because everyone is covered for everything by every doctor with no co-pay and no caps and no deductibles.

Scarborough is talking this sh*t because he’s trying to scare his largely-Democratic audience away from primary candidates who support government-run universal health insurance, so he makes up stories about those systems.  He’ll never say this, but in his mind the ideal Candidate to challenge Trump this fall is a Democrat with the political instincts and social values of a… Joe Scarborough.  A “Red Tory”— not a progressive.

Joe Scarborough doesn’t care what a Canadian like me thinks — even a Canadian with American roots going back to 1750 whose ancestors took up a musket for George Washington.  But most KOS readers are Americans living in the USA, and many of you have cable that carries MSNBC.

I urge you to pester him with polite but firm butt-kicking messages that insist he either do his homework on universal health insurance or keep his yap shut. Go to his social media feeds and the program’s feedback feeds and call him on this.

Public polling in Europe or Canada/Australis/New Zealand/Japan/Taiwan shows that virtually nobody in those countries would give up their current government-operated universal health insurance for the cruel, inefficient, spotty, unreliable expensive medical-insurance system currently found in the United States.  Anecdotally, everyone I know in Canada thinks the American system is ridiculous.

Its Friday, it has been a rough week.  Dictator Trump is empowered, and this is scary for the whole world…  not just Americans.

We all need a laugh.

The First Family has provided some comic relief themselves in the past couple of days: Trumps cringeworthy foolishness at the prayer breakfast (telling a room full of pastors that he (Trump) knows what is really in the heart of devout people as they speak to their god) and Junior making a total ass of himself in a tweet that gets a reference to scripture totally, totally 180 degrees wrong.

This intersection of a dark week in Trumpism and laughable religious-themed Trump blunders has prompted me to put out a call for more religiously-themed laughs at Trumps expense. Many will recall candidate Trumps mistaaken reference to the Biblical book of Second Corinthians as Two Corinthians. (We all had a good laugh at the time, but he still won the election.)

Heres the weekend "make up a joke that mocks Trumps ignorance"challenge.  In the comments below, pretend you are a Catskills comedian (perhaps a comedian trained in classic Greek history) and tell a joke that begins with the words

       "Two Corinthians walk into a bar..." 

“You have murderers and drug addicts – they don’t get nine years,”
President Donald Trump,
complaining about Justice Department sentencing guidelines
February 12, 2020

I don’t have much to add to this stunning statistic (as of Feb 27), other than it’s time to storm the gates with pitchforks and votes… but everybody on KOS already knows that.

Here’s the link: globalnews.ca/...

President “Nobody knows Wall Street better than me” today used coronavirus to bludgeon the Fed into doing something he has wanted for weeks.  It unexpectedly cut the prime rate by half a point — twice the normal increment.

He expected investors to be cheered by the cut — to jump back into the market and help it recover recent losses.  Maybe the cut is great news for over-mortgaged real-estate developers (Ahem-Trump), but otherwise it’s a signal to the business community that Trump has misread the current crisis. 

Business is not about to face a shortage of affordable capital for expansion — it is faced with a world-wide slump in demand as consumers stay home and stop spending money.  Take a look at the empty streets of the big cities in Asia.  Take a look at the cancelled Cherry Blossom Festivals and the closed Louvres and the laid-off passenger-jet pilots.

Rather than responding with a surge, the stock market reversed itself in the midst of a small rally and plunged 1,300 points before a small bounce — ending what had been a +376 gain at a -786 net loss for the day.

The overall market reaction to this unexpected rate cut “The government is shitting its pants… so should we” Rather than reassuring investors, Trump triggered a panic sell-off

The failure of the rate cut to prompt a rise will, of course, infuriate Trump and drive him even further into crazyland — and move his response to the pending pandemic further and further from reality, 

The question is — after losing fully one-seventh of their stock market asset-value in the face of such obvious public-health incompetence in the oval office (“so vaccines also help sick people feel better — right?”) when is the top  1 percent going to finally be forced to admit they have an existential threat to their wealth sitting in the oval office?

I am no expert on where the legal rights of individual Congress members end and the legal right of the Speaker to maintain order and safety begins.

IN case you haven’t heard, Republican Rep Louie Gohmert was exposed to a Covid carrier at the CPAC conference. (Perhaps it happened while they were sharing a laugh at all the liberal “fake news” about the virus.)

Now Gohmert — unlike Ted Cruz and GOP Rep Collins — is refusing to self-quarantine for 14 days.

Bearing in mind that 177 members of congress (Senate and House) are over 65 years old, and another 200+ are 50 to 65, and bearing in mind that older people are more likely to suffer severely from the virus and at greatest risk for death, does 79-year old Speaker Nancy Pelosi have the authority to have the Sgt at. Arms escort Mr. Gohmert from the Chamber and bar his re-entry?

I don’t know the answer.  Can she do this?  Can she do this with a majority vote?  Hope someone who knows more about Parliamentary rights in the U.S. Congress can answer.

Okay — so we have a 73-year-old American President who recently made an unexplained, sudden trip to hospital, is overweight, never exercises and hides his medical records behind fake reports from his paid-off physicians.

This is a man who recklessly shared an airplane with an exposed congressman and had dinner with a Brazilian who is no testing positive.  He won’t stop shaking hands and mingling with the billionaires at Mae-a-Lago. In spite of all this, he refuses to be tested.

So what happens if this combination of high-risk behaviour and high-risk health profile ends with a president showing visible symptoms — sweating like the Health Minister in Iran, labored breathing, visible exhaustion… even collapsing in public. 

What happens if he ends up in an oxygen tent?

Donald Trump is WAY too controlling to turn to Pense and say “Mike — call the Cabinet and Mitch McConnell and invoke the 25th Amendment until I get better.”  Can anyone see him doing that?

In the face of Trump refusing to go on sick leave, what happens to the already shaky stock market. My guess: a 2,000 point loss would be a goodday under those circumstances.  I cannot imagine the billionaires in the GOP donor class standing by and allowing this to happen. 

I would expect that Fox News and the Wall Street Journal will suddenly shift from “support President Idiot at any cost” to mounting an intense public campaign for the VP and the Senate to quickly invoke the 25th Amendment before the American economy (and the health of the American people) totally melts down.

The world is in strange times, folks, and America is led by a very strange President. Anything is possible.

Let me make it clear: Mike Pence is an ass-kissing right-wing-evangelical idealogue — a horrible human being with horrible political values.

Those deficiencies have not stopped him from stepping up to the podium every day and reminding Americans —including Trump’s base — what it’s like to report out to the country without resorting to a constant stream of improvised lies, half-baked “hunches,” false claims of expertise, conspiracy theories and schoolyard insults.

He surrounds himself with experts, and — one-by-one — actually turns the spotlight over to them so they can reassure the public with facts, details, and data… a process that demonstrates that crisis management is in the hands of people who really, really know their shit.

Pence’s dignified and solemn demeanor during these briefings is providing a daily dose of normal presidential behaviour —and a visible contrast with the blustering, inarticulate, seat-of-the-pants, incoherent bar-stool-know-it-all voters get when Donald Trump takes the podium.

Pence is making Trump look bad.

1. This contrast provides ammunition for Democratic campaigns and anti-trump Republicans and PACs like Bloomberg to remind soft Trump supporters that he is both an embarrassment to the Republican Party and a danger to public security
2. It also means that eventually Trump — who is very sensitive to being shown up — will be provoked into doing something foolish

How do Republicans put THAT cat back in the bag?

If you listen carefully, Donald Trump is signalling his supporters they are entitled to attend Easter Services in April — and the only thing stopping them are the “so-called experts” with pointy heads and Liberals & “fake media” who want to prolong “shelter in place” to deliberately destroy the economy before the next election.

I’ve been to Easter morning church services in the heart of Trump country: an all-white Protestant congregation in small-town rural Tennessee.  On Easter the church is packed-to-the-gills over-capacity.  Nobody stays home — church ladies drag reluctant bubba husbands to the pew, feeble grannies who no longer attend weekly are helped to church by others in the family.

It is literally shoulder-to-shoulder: people scrunch over to make room for one or two more at the end of the pew. social distance is more like six-tenths of an inch rather than six feet. When the hymns start everyone is expelling vast quantities of air through wide-open mouths while heads lean in as two or three people share a hymn book.  Over the course of the service the air gets increasingly warm and moist.  At the end, the parishioners are often encouraged to hug or shake hands with the person on either side of them.

This year, of course, there is a new element to these services: while the congregation is celebrating the Resurrection, the virus celebrates its best opportunity to colonise new hosts since first arriving in the community.

In many parts of America this kind of gathering is already prohibited. It looks like Trump is trying to conjure up a little bit of a reality show spectacle by encouraging his base to go to church anyway — just to show the Libtards that the deep state can’t keep them from God’s house.  A massive act of MAGA civil disobedience to mobilize Trumpist cultural warriors.

I cannot see any Red-State, bible-belt governor (even a Democrat) sending the State Police out to churches on Easter Morning to stand on the front steps and bar worshippers from entering on the holiest day of the year. 

If Trump Nation does go to Easter services in the millions, there will be three political consequences.

1. If millions of Trumpists heed his call and attend Easter Services, hundreds of thousands will — unfortunately — die after being duped into risking their lives by America’s greatest con-man.  The dead will not be at the ballot box voting for Trump
2. Friends and relatives of those who died after being encouraged to celebrate Easter at church as an act Trump-inspired defiance will finally have the scales fall from their eyes “We listened to the President and now my husband's dead.”  They may not vote democrat, but they probably won’t be rushing out to the polls either
3. Outside of Trump country, tens of millions of Americans will be horrified at a President whose political stunt sentenced hundreds of thousands of Americans to a lonely (no visitors in quarantined hospital), terrifying (drowning is a horrible way to go) and unnecessary death.

Let’s hope that somebody in the Whitehouse who has Trump’s ear can convince him this stunt is a political time bomb that will backfire on him. If they can’t talk him out of this, he should be charged with Crimes Against Humanity by the incoming Democratic federal Attorney General

UPDATES AND SURVEY ADDED… SEE BELOW

Even as experts all over the world were warning of a coming virulent pandemic, MAGA nation was digging in its heels in the belief that this whole thing was liberal fake news designed to make their President look bad before the election. 

The louder and more detailed the alarms, the more stubborn the resistance against the “libtard” science.  There were many reports of people making a point of exercising their freedom to get out and mix with others. “I ain’t fallin’ for it.”

All the warnings said “This is coming to America — it will start getting out of hand in March.”  Trump nation was convinced their President was telling the truth when he denied this.

The point of this diary is to ask other members who have actually witnessed a Trumpist processing the evidence that they were wrong, wrong, wrong and were misled by a President who said “Don’t worry about it?”

The evidence is there… how are they handling it?  I imagine some are pretending there is no contradiction, others are offering conspiracy theories to explain away the contradiction and hopefully, some (like the angry parents at Fallwell’s Liberty University) are calling BS.

I’m encouraging those who have general observations about the deep-seated self-delusion of Trumpsters to hold off from commenting, and make room for those with specific anecdotes about friends, relatives or (for those still working )  co-workers.  I’m especially interested in tales of the trickle of people who have finally seen that they’ve been conned and are willing to admit it.

A few days ago I wrote a diary asking Kos members to share anecdotes if they had experienced — in their own lives — a Trumpist who was starting to see through the con… where the light was going on.

Today’s diary is a call for fresh stories after a momentous week —a week where Trumpist governors were forced by the undeniable biology of viral illness to reverse themselves and order state-wide lockdowns; where unemployment claims climbed a stunning six million; where a well-known asshole Trumpy talk-radio sportscaster went on-air and vilified the President and where — according to the poll results above — the number of Trump voters dissatisfied with Trump’s early response to the virus almost doubled ! 

ALMOST DOUBLED!!! 
T H A T   I S   H U G E 

Last time I published a Kos diary like this there was a scattering of comments about workmates or relatives starting to see they had been conned by Trump — with some even kind of admitting it.  Eight per cent (23 people) of those responding to the survey attached to last week’s diary said someone in their life had changed. 

I’ll re-run the survey this week, and if you have not personally encountered any changes for the better in Trump country, you can share that observation by using the survey.

I would encourage commenters whose only observation is that “Nobody’s budging...” or “they’ll never change” to refrain from commenting, and leave the comments board clear for those with stories of Trumpists who are starting to change.  We all know very well what that massive red-hatted MAGA wall looks like — let’s use this diary (and its comments) to share stories about the cracks in that wall.

Guess which photo is “the greatest country ever anywhere any time”

The Bahamas — an island paradise located just a few miles off Florida — has just announced a new policy that when they re-open their borders in two weeks the price of admission (for tourists and returning residents alike) is proof of a recent COVID test showing a clean bill of health.

Contrast that official attitude — coming from the Prime Minister and his cabinet — with the magic thinking from the governor’s office in next-door Florida and Republican politicians (and MGA dittoheads) across America peddling the delusional lies that the epidemic is behind is.  Contrast this with the foolishness of an American President inviting people from all over the United States to crowd into an indoor arena for a political rally… as if the epidemic doesn’t exist.

Here’s the Bahamas — with no medical-research institutes, no medical-school hospitals, no Nobel-Laureates in medicine and nothing compare to the American CDC — showing up the United States with a display of reality-based acknowledgement of the current science on coronavirus.  Maybe the difference is explained by this: The Bahamas also lacks the equivalent of lying FOX news.

Full story in the Miami Herald: www.miamiherald.com/...

All U.S. military and federal public servants take an oath to support and defend the constitution.  When those same public servants follow instructions from their supervisors (or commanders) to actually violate the constitution, they break that oath.

Arresting American citizens engaging in the constitutionally-protected right to assemble and air their grievance is a violation of that oath.  In the same way that Biden has put Putin on notice that will be held accountable and face sanctions for illegally interfering with American politics,  he should let the anonymous stormtroopers they will similarly be held accountable for their illegal interference with American politics.

Biden should tell these Oath Breakers that their oath sets up a legal obligation to disobey unconstitutional orders.  He should tell them that any punishment for disobeying illegal orders will be reversed if he wins,  Those who obey illegal orders will be tracked and either be disciplined at work or face criminal charges

The young men and women dressed in camo on American streets need to pick a side.

Just sayin’

Every few months I post a diary inviting Kos readers to leave a comment describing how their Trunp-supporting crazy uncle/ageing parent/lunchroom buddy etc. has turned on the Donald — has suddenly (or gradually) realized that the Emporer is actually not wearing any clothes.

The first time I asked for stories like this there was little to report.

The second time a trickle of encouraging news from the Road to Damascus*.

Now I’m asking again at a time when the polling tells us that millions of Americans have abandoned this con man... and advocacy groups have sprung up to give public voice to this change of heart.

You are free to say anything you wish if you comment (within the confines of Kos rules) — but the purpose of this diary is to present a picture of who is changing their mind/heart, and why are they doing so.  I am not sharing the details of my stubbornly Trumpist sister because there is no value in telling that same old story.  We all know people like that.

If there is any value in this diary it will come from gathering together a series of anecdotes from Kos readers on what it takes for a formerly loyal (or even reluctant) Trumper to change their mind — and, hopefully, we’ll see some patterns or gain some insights into the conversion process. As tempting as it might be, peppering the comments with stories of people resistant to change dilutes the lesson offered by looking at people who have changed.

* Apologies to those unfamiliar with the New Testament.  The “Road to Damascus” refers to the sudden, blinding, dramatic conversion of a man’s core beliefs 

Here are a couple of passages from Nikki Haley’s speech on the first night of the RNC:

In much of the Democratic Party, it's now fashionable to say that America is racist. That is a lie. America is not a racist country.

We [our brown-skinned family] faced discrimination and hardship.

Ric Wilson said, “Everything Trump touches, dies.”  Apparently — for Nikki Haley — one of the things that has died is her ability to see when she is making a fool of herself.

When you tell millions of people on television that America is not racist and then — literally four sentences later — recall how your immigrant family faced discrimination for your brown skin and turbans and saris… you are most certainly making a fool of yourself.  In particular, you are discrediting yourself with people who live outside the FOX-Trump bubble: i.e. potential swing voters.

Contamination by Trump has turned the woman who five years ago took down the Nazi Confederate flag from the South Carolina legislature into an insight-lacking RWNJ.

Here is the full passage:

In much of the Democratic Party, it's now fashionable to say that America is racist. That is a lie. America is not a racist country.
 

This is personal for me. I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. They came to America and settled in a small southern town. My father wore a turban. My mother wore a sari. I was a brown girl in a black and white world.

We faced discrimination and hardship…

You’ve got to be an American citizen to legally contribute to an American political campaign or PAC.  That’s a good law, in my view.  Casting a vote is a right based on citizenship, and non-citizens shouldn’t be able to vote or buy votes or buy elections in other countries.

The right to vote, on the other hand, is a universalright, recognized as such Article 21(3)  of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a declaration drafted by an American-chaired committee and supported by an American vote when ratified in the UN General Assembly. 

This declaration of rights is as American as Apple Pie

21 (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Although most members of KOS are American citizens, it’s clear that many are not.  Some of these not-Americans have always lived outside the USA, others are residents of the USA — legal or otherwise — but not citizens.  There is a way that these KOS members — banned from making political donations — can donate to an American organization whose mission is to make sure that American citizens are able to exercise the right to vote as proscribed by both American law and the UN Universal declaration.   

There is another diary on KOS today celebrating the work of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC) which “works with formerly incarcerated citizens in restoring their voting rights.”  This coalition helps former Florida felons who have been denied the vote because they have (or fear they have) outstanding fines and court costs hanging over their heads. 

The FRCC provides both legal assistance and — if legal research confirms fines are owing — financial assistance clearing up fines and court costs.  A lawyer-certified “clean slate”  enables former felons to participate in the election, confident they will not be turned away (or arrested) for trying to vote this fall when not technically eligible.

I’m not an American citizen — in my family that ended when my father was required to choose his Canadian father’s citizenship to qualify for officer training in the Canadian military in WWII. (At a time when Canada was already bombing Hitler’s war factories while the isolationist United States — firmly in the grip of the original “America Firsters”— was still all “Hitler isn’t that bad” neutral… but that’s another story.) 

The point of this diary is to urge the non-Americans in this group — banned from partisan donations in the USA — to support the enforcement of universal human rights in Florida by sending an online donation to FRRC at:

     wegotthevote.org/...

I did

AFTERTHOUGHT
If you are an American citizen and have non-citizen friends (domestic or overseas) who are constantly lamenting “America’s a mess… I wish I could help,” here’s a suggestion: Send your friend(s) to wegotthevote.org/...

In Canada!!?
Canada???

Canada’s land border is closed, closed, closed to Americans — has been for months. 

It’s not just the high infection rate (although that alone would be justification enough)… it’s also the insanity of tens of millions of unsanitary American idiots who proudly refuse to protect themselves from becoming virus spreaders because liberty/hoax/Trump. 

Polling in Canada has shown the closed-door border is quite popular if that’s what it takes to keep out all those ignorant American babies.

However — there are exceptions.

Canadian citizens living in the USA can come home anytime, even if they are still driving a vehicle with American license plates. They need to start off their homecoming with a strict 14-day self-quarantine — no exceptions.  American citizens with spouses, sons/daughters or parents can also cross over to Canada as long as they begin their visit with a self-quarantine. 

Americans driving between Alaska and the lower-forty-eight can also enter Canada with a special short-dated permit requiring them to stay in their vehicles except for motels, eat from drive-thrus and take the most direct route. 

Unfortunately, several “ugly-Americans” with an overly-developed sense of American-exceptionalism-based entitlement have recently been fined in Canada (to great publicity) for breaking these rules.  They’ve been caught dine-in eating, hiking the Rockies and making detours to scenic locations — often after Canadian authorities were tipped off by resentful Canadians.

This abuse of Canadian hospitality has actually prompted public hostility and calls for the Canadian government to close down the “driving to Alaska” loophole. Some people driving U.S.-plated vehicles have been verbally abused on the street by Canadians worried about American cooties. (The social-democrat Premier of British Columbia has responded by pointing out “You never know the full story… don’t rush to judgement and please be kind.”)

Three months ago a Texas-based Canadian father drove his Texas-plated truck to Victoria, British Columbia, where (after a two-week quarantine) he has been visiting his son’s family.  The city of Victoria is located on Vancouver Island — and Vancouver Island is not on anybody’s “most direct route” between Alaska and the lower states.

A couple of days ago this Canadian dad woke to find someone had vandalized his Texas-plated truck overnight — smashing windows, stealing the plates and explaining their vandalism with spray-painted messages that linked the American truck to Donald Trump (who is generally disliked and ridiculed in Canada, BTW).

The vandal — in what I’m sure they considered an act of great Canadian patriotism and self-defence -- was sending a clear “Yankee go home!” message to the Canadian owner of this American truck.

I’m fully expecting the Canadian Prime Minister to issue a very Canadian apology to the owner of this vehicle and to everyone anywhere in the world driving pickup trucks with American licence plates.

www.cbc.ca/...

Canadian Broadcasting Corp news tonight is running two stories about the one-way closure of Canada’s border to Americans — one story reports Canada has again extended the closure another 30 days.  This is the sixth monthly extension since the border was first closed in March, and extends the lockdown from Sept 21 to October 21.

The ban allows “essential travel”— mostly the two-way truckers who keep both national economies humming with the movement of goods and food in both directions.  It also allows American citizens to visit spouses, sons, daughters and parents in Canada. 

Both these exceptions to the travel ban are tightly regulated — truckers must take “the most direct route,” and confine themselves to motels and to their dropoff and pickup locations.  Americans visiting family must observe a 14-day self-quarantine — and are subject to snap inspections with violators facing $700,00 fines, jail and permanent deportation.

There is also a highly regulated “direct route” exception for Americans who can show they have a legitimate reason for driving either way between Alaska and the lower 48. (I call this the “nice-guy-Canadian” exemption.)

The other CBC story reports on new polling with an overwhelming 90% of Canadians supporting the ban on American visitors.  The story interviews mayors of Canadian tourism towns near the border (like Niagara Falls, Ontario), and the message is “Yes… it’s costing us billions of lost tourist dollars, but, with the way they are managing COVID south of the border, we need to do this to keep our people safe.”

Canada has many conservative mayors, but it doesn’t have any Republicans —that is a uniquely American affliction.  I live in Canada and I have not heard of a single Canadian politician claiming COVID is “a hoax” or to otherwise contradict the science.  There may be a few who do, but they are kept on the margins.

Canada’s more generous safety net also makes it easier for politicians to support “go-slow” opening up — Canadians do not lose their no-copay universal health insurance when they lose their job because health insurance is based on citizenship, not on workplace perks.  In addition, Canada continues to provide generous unemployment benefits to laid-off employees and self-employed who lost work because of the virus. Slow opening up does not ruin nearly as many lives in Canada, and that reduces pressure on politicians to push for premature opening up.

One further measure of public support for the border closure reported in the CBC story is the way recreational boaters in Canadian ocean waters north of Seattle have — in a departure from the normal cross-border fraternity of boaters — organized themselves to do real-time reporting of American pleasurecraft and fish boats that have crossed into Canada. 

American boats are not at all allowed north of the border, and they are clearly not welcome as well… even if they might bring Yankee dollars to marinas and other COVID-slumping tourism facilities in Coastal British Columbia.

(By the way — the American boats are reported to the Canadian Coast Guard, Canada Customs or the RCMP, not to any self-appointed “Canadian patriots” with guns or to unregulated militias.)

Here are the links again:
   www.cbc.ca/…
   www.cbc.ca/...

ADDENDUM

Percentage of total Canadian exports (2019).

The question in this headline doesn’t refer to all white-skinned people — just white-skinned Americans.  Especially themen.

When Donald Trump repeatedly characterizes black crowds as “rioters” and “thugs,” he’s being racist. Just a tiny, tiny percentage of black Americans could fairly be called “thugs”— about the same as white Americans. The racist generalization isn’t true — it is a racist lie.

Same when Trump describes undocumented Mexicans as “drug dealers, criminals, rapists” (while allowing that “some, I assume, are good people,”— but only “some”).  This is racist because his ridiculous and vile characterization is totally untrue — another racist lie. Most undocumented immigrants are good people — so good, in fact, they have a lower crime rate than their American counterparts.

But when it comes to white Americans, some unflattering generalizations are true.  Polling tells us that one in three white women are pretty unshakable Trump supporters, as are about half of America’s white men.

I look at this from the perspective of a guy who runs a guest house in Canada just north of the U.S. border.  If the borders were open now and I got an online reservation from a white American couple, there is a fifty/fifty chance that one of them would be a Trumper. That means a fifty percent chance I would be personally engaging with someone who:

• does not value honesty and thinks habitual lying is acceptable
• thinks all my house rules designed to keep everyone safe from exposure to COVID are total nonsense based on a hoax

In my life I do not trust people who think it’s “no big deal” for someone to lie whenever its convenient.  I am wary of people like that. I am also wary of people who disrespect science-based COVID hygeine — especially since I have to come in contact with them when they arrive.  Yet — if I get a guest reservation from a white skinned American couple, there is a fifty percent chance I get both these undesirable traits.  (Our reservation system provides a profile photo of the guest, and usually the skin colour is unambiguous.)

There is no public opinion polling that leads me to believe there is a fifty per cent chance an asian-American or a black American is a Trumpist, so I have no reason to start worrying they are someone who thinks dishonesty is okay is hostile to COVID precautions.  There is and there is certainly no reason to think new guests from Korea or Singapore or elsewhere in Canada are likely to come with Trumpy baggage.

The only block of people in the world who have a fifty per cent chance of having these moral defects are white Americans.  This isn’t a racist lie — it is based on reliable polling.  Fifty percent is certainly not one huindred percent.  Fifty per cent clearly does not apply to all white Americans, but the percentage is so high that that it makes me wary at the prospect of a white American stranger showing up on my doorstep. 

When I meet a white-skinned American stranger, I have to wonder “Is he/she a Trumpist nutcase… are they going to be honest with me or lie when convenieht… are they going to be defiantly careless about COVID”  If the white stranger male, there is a fifty oercent chance the answer to these concerns is “yes,”— so, until I find out, I’m wary. 

… and that brings me back the question posed in the headline: Is it racist to be wary of white-skinned Americans?  Please answer in quiz or comments or both. 

_____________________________________

(Full disclosure: my white-assed Scots ancestors arrived in what is now America about 280 years ago. My Tennessee granny eloped to Canada before WWI; my father chose Canadian citizenship when he came of age (no dial-citizens back then); and I have been Canadian (and white skinned) from birth.)

I am writing this short diary to ask any readers with medical knowledge (by training or by experience as a patient) to comment on what might happen when Trump’s short course of “feel-good” steroids comes to an end any day now?  Right now he’s telling the world he feels 20 years younger — not normally how someone wheezing his way through a bout of COVID feels.  Seems the drugs are distorting his reality.

Do people “crash” when the euphoric-causing drug is withdrawn?  If there is a crash or withdrawal, how common is it, and what happens?  Agitation?  Lethargy?  Hallucinations?  Delusions?

Alternately — what if he browbeats some poor doctor into continuing a drug that makes him feel “20 years younger?”  How would that affect his sanity over the next 28 days?  If not, what happens to his body and mood when withdrawal reverses his rejuvenation, and he suddenly “ages” 20 years in a few days —that’s gotta be a major downer for someone as vain as Trump.

If your expertise extends beyond “I googled it” please tell the readers here what we might expect from a man who is already an unbalanced lunatic.

Although the Canadian border is generally closed to Americans (COVID), Americans who can prove they have a legitimate reason for travelling by car to or from Alaska can get a special Canadian-Government permit to do so. 

The permit must be hung on the rear-view mirror, so passing police vehicles who notice American plates can quickly check without necessarily stopping the vehicle.  The permit requires the American visitor to take the most direct route (no side trips) and imposes an exit deadline on each visitor (no stopping in Banff for a few days hiking).  The exit date is printed on the permit, and in a nation-wide version of Neighbourhood Watch, violators are often reported to the Mounties by ordinary civilians

Most Americans in transit between Alaska and the lower forty-eight under this program understand they are “guests with conditions,” but some seem to feel that American Exceptionalism means the rules don’t really apply to them.  (Kind of like the Trump family refusing to wear masks at the presidential debate.)  In Canada, conventional wisdom is that the violators are all Trumpy Republicans, but I do not think there is any actual research to confirm or refute that belief.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp news recently talked to Canadian border officials for an update, and details about violators and interested KOS readers can find the full story at this link: www.cbc.ca/...

In video of the accused Michigan kidnapping plotters released by prosecutors there is an almost unnoticed reference to the militia plotters somehow being involved in “doing a recount,” and a threat to shoot or banish “vermin” and “criminal-ass government thugs” the militia “come up on” while doing so.

What recount?

Usually references to “doing a recount” uttered three weeks before an election refer to recounting ballots, and ballots are generally only recounted when the loser challenges the loss as somehow inaccurate or illegitimate, and a recount subsequently takes place.  The banana republic version of a recount is when the dictator violently takes possession of ballots and “discovers” the initial count favouring his opposition was “in error.”

Are these dangerous, violent fascist militia thugs expecting to actually be in the ballot-counting room during a post-election recount?  And if they are, is this expectation just a delusional fantasy, or (our worst fear) have the forces of Trumpism actually been working behind the scenes to make arrangements for armed Brownshirt “enforcers” to forcibly remove “troublemakers” from the recount process.

One thing for sure, when he made this video alleged terrorist Brandon Caserta certainly talked liked he fully expected to be in a position to liquidate his political enemies during an expected recount.

Did anyone else catch this?

Is anyone else alarmed?

American history provides the word “militia” with very positive, patriotic connotations.  During the War of Independence against Britain, anti-British militias fought bravely against the redcoats.  Over the past two-plus centuries “militia” became synonymous with “patriotic heroes.”  Indeed, that association is exactly why modern-day armed, anti-government groups appropriated the label of militias — because of the positive resonance of the word with anyone even vaguely aware of America’s revolutionary history.

After 1776 America’s militias were part of a rebellious armed struggle to take power away from a “divine right” king and place it in the hands of citizens (or — at least — land-owning, white-skinned, male citizens).  Unlike their historical namesakes, today’s so-called militias are intent on challenging and undermining American democracy rather than supporting its birth and growth.

Today’s bands of well-armed American disrupters have much more in common with the warlords that fight over scraps of Somalia today, or that fought over the scraps of Yugoslavia in the 1990’s or the scraps of Imperial China in the early 20th century or the scraps of Afghanistan for the past few hundred years.  They do not believe in democracy — they believe in imposing their vision for America on the country by intimidation, terror and chaos, all fuelled by their acts of violence and well-armed threats of violence. 

They believe — to quote Mao —  “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”  They even believe that the U.S. constitution — a document intended to provide a blueprint for American democracy — confirms this repulsive anti-democratic notion.

Every time anyone refers to these bands of self-appointed, unelected American warlord fighters as “militias,” they are bathing these terrorists in the glow of America’s real patriotic militias — the eighteenth-century ones.  The very use of the word “militia” grants today’s thugs a measure of legitimacy… and legitimacy makes them ever more powerful and ever more dangerous.

If somehow the critics and observers of those terror groups — media, think tanks, Homeland Security, FBI, pundits, bloggers and people chatting online — could all agree to stop using the word militia and replace it with some variation of “American warlords” or “warlordism” it would prevent these American warlord fighters from stealing valor from the historical, genuineAmerican militias. This would recast them closer to what they really are — bands of undemocratic, unpatriotic, anti-American-values thugs.

This weekend a Biden bus was hijacked by armed men who forced it off its planned route.  This is how Putin deals with elections, or how Hitler’s Brownshits did during his rise to power.  In modern America the Klan has an infamous history with busloads of people with opposing political beliefs — but this kind of terrorism has not been supported by an American President since before the civil war.

I offer the words below as an extended question (in bold below) for Kossacks to direct to Trumpy family and Trumpy friends.  This started out as a message to my own Trumpy friends on my personal social media page

When the police shared the “He was having a really bad day” talking point, what were they trying to do?  Were they trying to reassure the community “We don’t have a racist, woman-hating psychopath here — just a troubled young man having a bad day.  Hey! We can all relate to that, right?”

Interestingly, they didn’t call him a “thug.”  They used language to try to normalize this guy — to turn him into the troubled teen down the street.

Let’s test how “normal” this is with a little user poll:

A thousand words

Democratic congress members this week warned of a “reverse brain drain” where the U.S. is losing the race to attract smart, skilled, well-educated immigrants.  The warnings were voiced at a hearing held by the House of Representatives' justice committee.

A news story carried by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp quoted House Rep. Zoe Lofgren, whose district includes Silicon Valley, citing a news article that said tech employment is growing slower in her area than in Toronto, Montreal and Edmonton.

Hearing witness Stuart Anderson, a former official Bush administration trade official, testified that more than half of America’s billion-dollar startups were created by immigrants. He also pointed out that all the key players who helped create Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine were immigrants to the U.S.

A written submission from Jennifer Grundy Young, CEO of the Technology Councils of North America, warned "… the Canadians have come to compete," She told about a skilled colleague who spent 18 years in the U.S. on work visas, never managed to get permanent residency, and finally moved to Toronto where they're recruiting others like him to come to Canada.

Typhoid Mary was a real person.

Her name was Mary Mallon, and she worked as a domestic cook for a series of wealthy NYC families just over a century ago.  She was an asymptomatic carrier for typhoid fever, and as she moved from household to household she left behind a trail of sickness and death. 

At one point fully one percent of typhoid deaths in New York were traced back to Typhoid Mary — with every one of these victims unsuspecting and unknowing. When she was first interviewed by an investigator looking for the source of the outbreaks in the households where she worked, she reacted very much like a modern-day Trumper:

[Investigator George] Soper first met Mallon in the kitchen of the Bowen family and accused her of spreading the disease. Though Soper himself recollected his behaviour "as diplomatic as possible", he infuriated Mallon and she threatened him with a carving fork [and] refused to give [medical] samples [for the lab],

In 2021 Tucker Carlson would have Mary on national TV as a “resistance hero,” and she’d be earning six-figure fees as a warmup speaker for lumpy pillow guy Mike Lindell and Florida retireee Donald Trump.

Today’s anti-vaxers bury themselves in the language of “freedom and liberty,” and convince many people that vaccine mandates and “anti-American”— notwithstanding that founding father Washington insisted his Revolutionary Army troops were vaccinated against smallpox, and didn’t object to government-enforced yellow fever lockdowns during his presidency).

Let’s fight their meme with our meme.  Let’s use the iconography of Typhoid Mary to pull the high ground out from under anti-vaxxers waving “freedom” flags, by converting their “brand,” from freedom into freedom for Typhoid Mary. 

Every time an anti-Vaxer opens their mouth we should label their nonsense as propaganda from the pro-death Typhoid Mary Liberation Movement rather than a cry for freedom.

Lets start calling them what they are — a vast movement dedicated to unleashing Typhoid Mary on unsuspecting and unknowing Americans

I’m not sure whether people who don’t normally work with numbers on a daily basis truly appreciate the difference between a virus where each carrier infects on average2 other people compared to a virus that infects on average5 others, but here’s how it plays out over a few weeks if you do the math.

Epidemiologists have now determined that COVID delta is more contagious than were childhood viruses like chickenpox in the 1950s.  I was a young child in the days before chickenpox vaccines, and when the virus arrived locally it tore through communities like wildfire.  If you didn’t get it in kindergarten you got it in grade 1 or maybe grade 2.

Nobody made it to grade five without getting chickenpox and its three sisters: mumps, measles and German measles.  It was a rite of passage and the four of them were known, with good reason, asuniversalchildhood diseases. (Adults were immune as a result of their own childhood encounters with these self-immunizing diseases.)

Epidemiologists are now starting to point out that delta COVID has the “transmission power” to spread like the universal childhood diseases in the 1950’s – the bug is aggressive enough that it will spread to every niche of the community, finding and infecting virtually everyone who is not vaccinated (and some that are).  If that sounds far-fetched – just look at the numbers in the table above.

For additional reference: from recent infamous CDC power point

AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN WITH THE TUCKER CARLSON HYPOCRACY.

Carlson is spending a week in Hungary slavishly praising fascist leader Orban and Hungarian government policies that allegedly protect the nation and its families from “wokeness.”

I don’t expect that Carlson will mention — let alone praise — two Hungarian government programs that actually do protect Hungarian families.  These programs are actually present in every OECD country except the United States:

• Universal, government-funded health insuranceLike America’s neighbours to the north, and most of Europe and Australia, NZ, Japan, Singapore, Saudi, Emirates, Israel Hungary provides all citizens with health care.  It is delivered as a universal public service, like k-12 education and roads 
• Universal paid maternity leave: the mother gets leave starting a month before birth.  One parent can then take six months paid leave (70% of normal salary) and the other gets a week paid leave at time of birth.

C’MON TUCKER — IF YOU’RE GOING TO TELL FOX NATION ABOUT ALL THE “GOOD THINGS” IN HUNGARY, ALSO TELL THEM THAT — BY AMERICAN STANDARDS — HUNGARY HAS A “SOCIALIST” GOVERNMENT THAT PROVIDES FAMILIES WITH UNIVERSAL, TAXPAYER-FUNDED HEATH INSURANCE AND PROVIDES FOR PAID MAT LEAVE FOR STAYING HOME TO TAKE CARE OF A NEWBORN.

Kos readers — if you have any Trumpy relatives who start repeating Carlson’s praise of Hungary, please throw this in their face.

Government in the Canadian province of British Columbia is done f*cking around with pro-COVID anti-vaxxers. 

On Monday the provincial Premier (counterpart to and American state governor) announced new regulations requiring a government-issued vaccine certificate for entry into (or participation in) a wide range of public activities, including concerts, sporting events, movies, restaurants, nightclubs, casinos, recreation facilities and even private organized affairs like weddings.  The regulations have the force of law on both the public and businesses under existing public health legislation.

The new requirements are effective in three weeks (September 13) — initially requiring only one vaccine injection.  Five weeks after that, the requirement bumps up to “fully vaccinated.”   Retail stores, and places of worship are not affected by the new program, and children under 12 -- who are not yet approved for vaccination in Canada— are not covered.  There is, however no exemptionfor people who are unable to be vaccinated for health reasons or who refuse to do so because of religion.

Five out of six (83%) of eligible British Columbians (over age 12) already have one vaccine shot, and three-quarters (74%) are fully vaccinated,  The new laws will allow businesses and municipal recreation facilities in the province to assure the vaccinated majority of their customers that they are not “sharing air” with unvaccinated people seated, standing or exercising nearby under the same roof.

The province’s largest major-league sports franchise quickly voiced enthusiastic support for the new rules.  The National Hockey League Vancouver Canucks Operations President said "The health and safety of our fans, employees, players and community has always been a top priority and we welcome today's announcement by [the] Premier."

After the announcement a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporter checked in with the Mayor of Nelson — a small Rocky Mountain town in the interior of British Columbia,  Mayor John Dooley agreed with the new plan and said the local restaurateurs and people in the entertainment business he has spoken to generally support the new regulations.

"I actually believe that a vaccine passport will improve business opportunities because people will feel safer going out," he said — a view echoed by the industry association representing the provincial hospitality industry.  The president and CEO of the B.C. Restaurant and Foodservices Association, said "We feel good about it,.. We need to go to the next level or we're going to be faced with [more business] closures."

So far, no reports of crazed Canadian “patriots” with guns threatening the provincial Premier or the mayor of Nelson or the food-and-beverage executive who support the Premier.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here’s the full list, pasted from the British Columbia Government web site

The requirement applies to all people born in 2009 or earlier (12+) and covers:

• Indoor ticketed concerts, theatre, dance, symphony and sporting events
• Indoor and outdoor dining at restaurants, pubs and bars
• Nightclubs and casinos
• Movie theatres
• Gyms, pools and recreation facilities  
  • Does not include youth recreational sport
• Indoor high intensity group exercise
• Indoor organized gatherings like weddings, parties, conferences, meetings and workshops
• Indoor organized group recreational classes and activities like pottery and art
  • Does not include K to 12 school and before and after school programs
• Post-secondary on-campus student housing. Note: Students must be partially vaccinated by September 7

Events, businesses and services will ask to see your proof of vaccination and valid government ID.

The requirement is in place until January 31, 2022, subject to extension.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Extra quotes from Mayor John Dooley of Nelson, British Columbia:

"I honestly believe that the passport is the way forward because it's unfair and disrespectful for people that are not vaccinated — that have no intention of being vaccinated — to hold the rest of the community at ransom,.. those who simply refuse shouldn't have the same privileges that we have."

Extra quotes from Anita Huberman
CEO of the local Board of Trade (chamber of commerce) in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey:

"A short-term proof of immunization strategy is an important temporary measure that the Surrey Board of Trade has been calling for, to the B.C. Government, as well as to the federal government.

The goal in the future is to have a co-ordinated, national approach to show proof of vaccination,"

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And, finally, a special link for American KOS members in states like Florida and Texas who are demoralized by the contrast between their own political leadership and what’s happening in British Columbia.

In Canada unemployment insurance is run strictly by the federal government, and the provinces have nothing to do with it.  Employees pay into the insurance fund as a compulsory payroll deduction.  If they lost their job through no fault of their own, they are eligible for 55% of regular pay for about a year, to a max of about $2,400 per month.  Family size is not a factor.

Employees who quit “without cause” are not eligible (although quitting, for example, because of sexual harassment could qualify as “just cause.”) 

Employees fired “for cause” are not eligible either -- with “cause” determined by a large body of laws, regulations and precedents.  Cause includes things like documented poor performance, unauthorized absences or repeated lateness.  Disputes are adjudicated by a network of professional “referees.”

Today Canadian Broadcasting news reported that the federal minister has decided that losing a job for refusing an employer’s “vaccination mandate” is the came as quitting without cause or being fired with cause, and renders the employee ineligible for benefits.

NOTE:
I deleted the original poll after the first ten replies because the wording in one of the answers was confusing and ambiguous.  Revised wording below

This is not The Onion and it’s not snark.  It’s a serious proposal.

People on the left hate Dick Cheney because he is an amoral asshole war-monger.  He pretty well single-handedly dragged America into a serious, prolonged and deadly war in Iraq — one that relocated the incumbent dictator from a Presidential palace on the Tigris to a hangman’s noose in a local jail.

Putin thinks Biden is a wuss.  He thinks America is wussy.  He thinks the west is soft.  He thinks the west doesn't have the backbone to push back.

I can’t think of a better way to scramble Putin’s brain than have a Democratic president appoint America’s most psycho badass as the tip of the U.S. spear — and for the President to tell the world “I have asked Ambassador Cheney to deliver a tough message to Moscow and to lead a Cabinet-level task force to craft a tough action plan for backing up that message. If America and the west need to inflict pain on Moscow, I cannot think of a Better architect for doing so than former Vice President Dick Cheney.”

When it comes to badass, Putin will have met his match in Cheney.  I mean — this is a guy who shoots his own friends in the face.

What more can I add… the picture says just about everything.

This ^^^ is what the splinter group of Canadian truckers want.
(90% of Canadian truckers are vaccinated — about double the rate in America.)

NOTE — This graph displays infections per million— in other words, it is adjusted to account for the vast population difference between the two countries

I have nothing more to add — the photo comment says it all.

The New York Times Monday published an article describing how thousands of middle-class Russians have fled the country for neighbouring Armenia and (Republic of) Georgia since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent introduction of severe new penalties for dissidents. 

This Kos diary is the story of one such family.

I got to know ВладимирРябков (VladimirRyabkov) a couple of months ago when he booked a one week tourist stay for his family at our Airbnb in Vancouver, Canada. This was a family trip — he was coming to visit Canada with his wife and his two young daughters.

Mr. Ryabkov is typical of the small-business middle class that emerged in Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the communist economy at the end of the Soviet era.  He ran a small Subaru repair garage in Tomsk — a small city (half a million) just north of Kazakhstan and Mongolia in southern Siberia.  Although he was nowhere near oligarch wealthy, he made a good-enough living to afford travel outside the country every year or two.  His next trip would take the family to Toronto and Vancouver for a month this coming summer.

Both Vladimir and his wife Anastasiia were what Americans would call “progressives.”  They support Russian dissident politician Alexei Navalny — currently a victim of politically-motivated poisoning and imprisonment by the Putin government. The Ryabkovs believed and hoped that Navalny would eventually inspire the re-birth of democracy in Russia.

Then came the Putin-directed invasion of Ukraine.

… and the crackdown on independent media across Russia;

… and the new laws that made it a treasonable offence to:

• call the “military intervention” in Ukraine an invasion or a war
• make a public protest against the invasion

The penalty for breaking these new laws is up to 15 years in prison and/or conscription into the Russian army with deployment to Ukraine to be used as cannon fodder by drawing resistance fire or with orders to shoot Ukrainian citizens… or both.

After the invasion Vladimir and Anastasiia hit the sidewalks of Tomsk with homemade anti-war signs.  Police stopped them and took their names, but this was just before the draconian anti-protest laws were passed.  As soon as those new laws took effect the police were at their door to “collect additional evidence” of their anti-war activities.

Vladimir and Anastasiia felt that arrest could come at any moment.  In addition to leaving their young children in the hands of an unsympathetic government while they went to prison, an arrest would also mean Vladimir could be drafted into the Russian army and — with a gun at his own head — be ordered to shoot Ukrainian civilians.

Although Vladimir is a Russian citizen he was actually born in Ukraineback when Ukraine and Russia were both part of the old Soviet Union.  His mother is Ukrainian.  His grandmother was Ukrainian.  If the Russians forced him into battle the “enemy” in his gunsights would be his own people.  It’s possible he could have literally found himself shooting at family — at cousins and uncles.

His reaction: “I left [Russia at] the possibility of being drafted into the army, and then I would have only one choice, to shoot myself.”

Within the hours of the police visit the family quickly packed up and fled Russia — first for Armenia and then on to the Republic of Georgia, where they are now living in a hotel while organizing the next step in their exile. 

“I will never return to Russia,” he told me in an e-mail. “because after Putin someone worse may come.  As long as there is no democracy in Russia, changes for the better are impossible”

Shortly after leaving Russia Vladimir posted a powerful three-minute message to YouTube— apologizing to Ukraine and renouncing Russian citizenship.

As a small business owner Vladimir had been able to set aside a nest egg which is temporarily financing his self-exile.  Although this leaves him better off than thousands of other exiles-of-conscience, he still left behind a well-established, prosperous business, almost all his personal possessions and all his personal relationships.

They are now a family without a country, without a home, without support networks, without a safety net, without a work permit and without any certainty for the future.  Sitting in their hotel room in Tbilisi, Georgia they are just as much refugees from the Putin war machine as the Ukrainians sitting in temporary housing in Poland or Romania.

This is not a happy story, and it may not have a happy ending — nest eggs are depleted when you cannot work, and the European “no fuss” asylum programs for Ukrainians fleeing west do not yet apply to Russian anti-war dissidents fleeing Putin and Russian repression.

I hope the big cable news networks in North America and Europe start highlighting Russians who chose to speak out against the invasion and are now facing the consequences.  If their stories of resistance and courage are broadcast it whould be good for morale within Ukraine, it would offer encouragement to other Russian dissidents and it would remind the west that it isn’t “the Russians” waging war... it’s Putin.  It’s Putin and his spineless inner circle, most of whom apparently are aware this is a big, big mistake for Russia and who — like the sycophants who once inhabited the Trump Oval Office — are afraid to tell the boss he’s harming the motherland.

A few weeks back I wrote a Kos diary about a Russian family who suddenly fled the country (leaving behind a prosperous small business) after police arrived at their door threatening arrest for treason after both parents picketed against the war in Ukraine.  The article made the rec list and was read by hundreds of Kos members, so I wanted to update those who took an interest with the latest developments

The family spent a few days in Armenia and Georgia en-route to Canada, where they asked for political asylum when they arrived at Toronto airport on tourist visas.  On April 28 they had a preliminary immigration hearing to determine whether the Canadian government was prepared to accept their application for refugee status and allow them to stay in the country until an asylum panel was able to adjudicate their application. 

The preliminary hearing allowed their application for asylum to go forward, and authorized:

• the family to remain in Canada until the hearing next year
• the adults to obtain working papers and get jobs in Canada
• the daughters to attend public school in Canada
• three-month family pass at  network of 20 municipal aquatic centers and indoor skating rinks
• the entire family to be covered by Canada’s no-premium universal health insurance

Putin’s loss, Canada’s gain

PHOTO OF MUNICIPAL AQUATIC CENTER

... they can even be ironic!

Canadian Majority Public Opinion:  Abortion should be legal and should be covered as a medical procedure under Canada’s government-run universal health insurance program.

Canadian Law: Abortion is legal and is fully covered as a medical procedure under Canada’s government-run universal health insurance program.

www.cbc.ca/...

Get to work, Blue America, while you still (to paraphrase Ben Franklin) “… can keep it.”

By now everyone knows about the 19 police officers who stood motionless outside the classroom where a slow-motion mass murder was taking place, and by now everyone has a theory or two or three explaining why these police ignored both protocol and training that required them to “run towards gunfire” with guns blazing. 

Some say the police were cowards. Others say the cops were confused & disorganized.  Another theory is they were paralyzed by power struggles between feuding commanders.

I’ve got my own theory based on demographics: These were police officers in Texas.  It’s not unlikely that with this demographic intersection every last one of them was a Trump supporter.  Trumpy Trump supporters.  MAGA-hat-wearing, flag-waving, rally-going Trump supporters.

And (my theory goes) — as with millions of other Trumpy Trump supporters across America — what used to be a personal sense of honor and duty has been corroded and dissolved by proximity to MAGA world.  (See Everything Trump Touches, Dies by recovering Republican Rick Wilson.)

Instead of standing in that hallway asking themselves “What’s the right thing to do?” and “How do we save the babies?” these police found themselves modelling the Trump example and asking themselves “What’s in it for me?” and answering that question by deciding that only “suckers” risk their lives to save some “loser kids” who, like “loser POW John McCain” allowed themselves to be taken prisoner. They put their options through a Trump filter, and quickly decided that “breaching that door is for chumps.”

If you think my theory is a bit outrageous, consider this: 
For 47 minutes armed police showed less courage than the ten-year-olds on the other side of the wall who repeatedly snuck calls to 911, knowing full well that this could bring them instant deathif caught.  How do you explain thatcontrast without venturing into the realm of outrageous?

Canada’s Prime minister today announced sweeping new legislation designed to freeze the number of privately-owned handguns in Canada and reduce the number of assault weapons currently in circulation.  It will also create a “red flag” law that allows judges to require those deemed by the court a danger to themselves or others to surrender their weapons, and to revoke firearm licenses held by people with a record of domestic violence or stalking.

The legislation makes high-capacity weapons illegal by requiring all long guns to be modified so they cannot carry more than five rounds and making the sale or transfer of high-capacity magazines illegal. Maximum jail terms for smuggling or illegally transferring firearms will increase by 40 per cent to fourteen years.

In making the announcement Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the federal government had tried to work with provincial and territorial governments, but abandoned this patchwork after deciding the country needed strong consistent laws across the nation.

Handgun ownership in Canada is considerably lower than in the United States — there are currently 1.1 million legal handguns in a country of 40 million — one gun for every 36 people.  Strict Canadian laws restrict open carry, which requires special permits that are very difficult to obtain.

The new legislation was tabled in the federal House of Commons May 30, and is expected to pass without any complications.  Both parties in the current ruling coalition are on record as long-time supporters of gun safety, and there is strong public support for such measures. The mass shooting of schoolchildren in Texas last week did not go unnoticed in Canada, and this tragedy only strengthened the resolve of Canadian politicians while boosting public support for tighter gun safety laws and regulations.

Today’s mass shooters
are the bastard
grandchildren of the
“well regulated Militia”
amendment

How is it that all these mostly-young American mass shooters are able to get their hands on a weapon of war — something that is not possible anywhere else in the civilized world. 

We all know the answer: it is because American constitutional law has a single sentence that courts have said gives every American the right to purchase these weapons.  Although that sentence ends  by declaring “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,”It begins with the words “A well regulated Militia.”

A. Well. Regulated. Militia. 

Today’s mass shooters are clearly the bastard children of this well regulated Militia. (Or great-great-great-great... grandchildren, but you get the point.)

If mass shooters in 2022 are authorized to equip themselves with lethal firepower because of their legal links to the “well regulated Militia” law, isn’t it time that the Well Regulated Militia started getting credit for the carnage — or at least sharing credit with the gunman actually pulling the trigger?

When an Islamist shooter attacks a Red Cross truck or a rival Mosque, the headline doesn’t name the shooter (whom nobody has ever heard of), it blames ISIS or al Qaeda:

alQaeda gunmen attack Paris newsroom, killing 12 wounding 11

Shouldn’t the American media re-write its style guides to treat American mass shooters — who are only in the field with an AR-15 in their hands under authority granted by the Well Regulated Militia amendment — the same way it treats islamists: put the unknown shooter in the background and give lead credit to the well-known name. 

Shouldn’t American headline writers and TV journalists and online bloggers and people arguing at the dinner table start giving credit where credit is due.

• Well Regulated Militia attacks young children at Texas school, 19 students and two teachers shot dead

This is not a reference to the militia groups of well-armed man-boys who get together to play soldier on the weekends and gather outside polling stations (fully armed) when the vote count isn’t going their way.  This is all about the loners who commit a mass shooting with a weapon that was only available to them courtesy of the “well armed Militia” amendment to the U.S. constitution.  

• Lone Well Regulated Militia gunman attacks Buffalo supermarket: executes 10 in cold blood, wounds 3 more

• High school in Parkland Florida attacked by Well Regulated Militia gunman — 17 dead, 17 injured, shooter arrested

• TRAGEDY IN CONNECTICUT Well Regulated Militia gunman storms elementary school: 20 dead children, six dead teachers

• Well Regulated Militia unleashes carnage at Texas Walmart: 23 dead, 23 wounded — shooter targets Hispanics

Imagine Lawrence O’Donnell leading off with:

“In three separate attacks this weekend three separate members of America’s lone wolf Well Regulated Militia murdered 37 civilians. The shootings took place at a school graduation in Iowa, a farmer’s market in North Dakota and a maternity hospital in Florida.  Half of those killed were children, and another 42 were injured.  Democrats in congress again called for legislated gun regulations, while Republicans offered ‘thoughts and prayers.’”

This is not a silly word game or a gadfly suggestion.  It is a serious suggestion to deliberately shift the focus to where it belongs: away from “mentally ill young man” or “middle-aged loner obsessed by grievance” or “unlocked door” to a focus on Standing American Lawthat — left unchecked by legislatures and Congress— allows the aggrieved and the disturbed to walk through that unlocked door at Walmart carrying a weapon that is only legal under the “Well regulated militia” amendment to the constitution.

Well-chosen language has an enormous power to frame issues.  The American religious right is about to send tens of thousands of American women off to their death at the hands of back-alley abortionists, and yet even their critics still call them “Pro Life,”  a name that appropriates the vernacular of the moral high ground.

The term pro-life was deliberately injected into the American vernacular by a political movement that supports the death sentence, opposes safe abortions, opposes any government assistance designed to reduce the mortality rates of mothers and babies… and yet cloaks itself in the virtue that comes from being the “pro life” side of political debate.

The left needs to reframe the debate from “gun control” to “How do we better regulate America’s poorly-regulated militia?”  There are ways that new terminology enters the language.  When I was a teenager I never heard anyone say “people of colour” or “pro-choice” or “Me Too”— and yet today these are phrases that now shape public discourse.  How this happens requires a separate essay in linguistics — the point of this essay is to argue that it should happen.

I mean — when you can’t go to the grocery store, the doctor’s office or a nightclub without wondering if you are safe, are you really living the American dream?

If you cannot send your kids to school every morning without wondering if they’ll ever come home, are you really living the American dream?

Initial reaction to release of Dominion Voting Systems’
discovery evidence in defamation suit vs FOX News.

Not Surprising:
The FOX News details of the eyes-wide-open full awareness that “the big lie” was a “big lie”— and deliberately propagating the lie in spite of that awareness

Surprising:
Seeing it laid out in such stunning, minute detail in a court document.

C’mon Kossacks — let’s make this #hashtag and meme trend on social media.

Ridicule is a much more potent weapon against pious, sanctimonious right-wing hypocrisy than shouting at them or arguing with them.

Get on to social media and help re-brand these cruel phony Christians as #MomsForLechery
 

Most of Canada’s universal health care is available on a “universal” basis — everyone has the same access, regardless of income. 

Prescription coverage is NOT universal: most provinces cover medications, but with an income-based sliding scale deductible (except for in-hospital meds, which are all covered 100% for everyone).  Outside hospital people below the poverty line and on disability pensions are covered by government insurance, but people with (for example) $60,000 household income responsible for a couple of thousand dollars annually before the coverage kicks in.

Many Canadians are also covered by employment-based coverage (or employment-pension based) that covers 70% — 100%, depending on the plan.  80% of Canadians are covered one way or another... with co-pays but no deductibles.

Canada’s federal government is about to expand pharmacare to universally cover everyone (regardless of personal income) for several specific medications from the first dollar: no co-pay, no annual deductible.  These include most diabetes medications, hormone birth control, IUDs, “morning after” pills and abortion pills.  (Yes —abortion pillsand medical abortions on the taxpayers’ dime — this is what it’s like to live in a country not ruled by religious zealots.)

In most Canadian provinces most reproductive medications can be dispensed by a pharmacist without a doctor’s prescription.