Finally those Canadians with financial and social stature have come to the table wholeheartedly to denounce Trump. If it’s taken you this long….we needed you in 2014/ 2015. We needed you to speak out emphatically that a man of deviant morals and conduct unbecoming of political party leadership could not ascend to a position of political power. However; most of you were mute. You didn’t want to ruffle feathers. You didn’t want to leave any kind of perception with others that you empathized with his policies and that you could rationalize his character in favor of Republican ideals. You may have been fearful of retribution. I say this emphatically now if you were mute – shame on you!!
Shame on you if you bought into some conspiracy theory about the “deep state” without presenting proof. Shame on you if bought into his lies and deceit. Shame on you if you were so naive that he had nothing to do with the Capitol attack on January 6th, 2021 especially in lieu of his conduct on that day and a reference to a vigilante group of whose name he was familiar. Shame on you if you thought that all women alleging sexual assault conspired together for financial gain by falsifying claims of sexual assault. Shame on you if you discounted the 3,500 – 4,000 lawsuits for which he or his companies were cited in lawsuits as standard practice for business. Shame on you if you believed that he had every right morally to withhold presentation of his tax returns upon request given a quest for the Presidency. Shame on you if you had normalized in your mind a fabrication of Barak Obama’s birth records. Shame on you if you normalized a a man with a tawdry record as his 2016 campaign manager. Shame on you if you had watched episodes of “The Apprentice” and had not picked up samples of his character flaws. Shame on you if you hadn’t surmised that bankrupting companies would correlate with mismanaging a government. Shame on you if you were indifferent by his indifference toward Russia invading Ukraine. Shame on you if you believe that the fabrication of real estate’s market value is an innocuous clerical mishap in the context of a loan application. Shame on you if you believe that paying money to a pornstar in order to conceal a perceived character flaw is all good campaign practice. Shame on you if you believe that engaging in acts of deceit is what can be expected of a Presidential candidate.
Now Donald Trump near the date of his second inauguration has appeared before the media handling a question about whether he would annex Canada by force. Imagine that. Here we are. Canada’s relationship with the U.S. has been severely damaged by the imposition of tariffs and the abrogation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. He is referencing Canada as a “failed state”.
Half of Canadians are $200 or less away from not being able to pay their bills. Accounting firm MNP has been watching an “insolvency” metric a claim that it is up 8 per cent in Q4 2024 vs Q3 2024.
Why is this? Let me postulate.
Acquiesce to desires of spouse despite financial condition.
Fly the world in faith. It’s one segment of society where statistically we’ve improved. It’s never been safer to fly partly because of absolute attention put on “internal controls” having learned lessons from past accidents. This isn’t to say that those controls can’t be compromised when parties have self interests to serve. I think the Tenerife disaster was monolithic in producing necessary regulation. If I recall from an episode of “Mayday” or something similar way back…..the attitude of the most senior pilot of one of the two planes and the circumstances surrounding events produced the kind of impatience and poor decision making which culminated with the collision. The thing about life is that nothing is for certain despite man’s good intention and effective execution. We can all look to recent events whereby expectations were met with far differing results.
Naturally, we go about our business and take a plane when the need or responsible desire arises. We are aware of the privilege and we play by necessary rules. There is a bigger chance of getting struck by a vehicle while walking to work than there is of dying on an airplane. Pilots have check and balances every time they walk into a cockpit. The driver of a 4×4 pick up truck unsettled by matters at home and potentially distracted by a phone is a much bigger risk.
However; at times like this when we learn of an air disaster, it gives us pause to reflect on the delicacy of life and how none of us are immune from one very bad move from another. Despite some obvious cocooning arising from the pandemic and otherwise, all of us look to adventure in some way, shape, or form as a means to elicit happiness. Unfortunately, a price can be paid via risk in the quest for adventure. It’s a price which keen happy hungry humans are rightfully willing to pay and we honor those lost in pursuit.
If you spy on your opponent by flying a drone into their practice, you are a cheater. Cheaters should be disqualified from competition. Any Olympic medal arising having been caught being a cheat would forever hold an asterisk should the governing body deem that the act could be rationalized in a way to impose only a penalty instead of a disqualification. This is the situation currently with the Canadian women’s soccer team at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Yes….there would be honest committed women soccer players hurt because of an unethical coach. These young women would come to learn that life isn’t always fair in that honest committed athletes would come to pay a price for their unethical leader(s). Of course it will be complicated when it shouldn’t be because of the enormity of sacrifice of so many involved. There is also the backdrop of our new age of failing to be resolute and absolute. We’ve become so good at turning a blind eye due to the work involved in producing accountability. Send the Canadian women’s soccer team home. They have cheated. They have also stained Canada’s image on the world stage at a time when we should be rebuilding it.
Having caught snippets of the hearing this morning which dealt with the Trump assassination attempt I suspect there will be regrets in the handling of the matter. She should have been fired at the outset instead of putting her through a grilling which appeared more to serve the disappointment of elected officials than to extract information which was unavailable to this woman nine days after the incident pending an investigation which has yet to draw conclusions.. There was much drama but not much progress. The facts actually speak for themselves for the most part just from what’s been conceived through documented accounts of the incident through video footage. The roof was not secured. The premise was not secured. The secured area was not sufficiently wide. The suspiciousness of the individual was not communicated effectively amongst all security personnel through all agencies represented at the event. There was insufficient reconnaissance done prior to the event. This all was clear because of what actually happened.
By firing the woman at the outset, a temporary director could have been installed in order to facilitate the investigation and provide most effective cooperation for making immediate change while gathering answers. Instead, there was grand standing and the wielding of insults akin to the new norm of interpersonal conduct. It was actually bizarre to witness the level of disdain and contempt from U.S. politicians directed to this woman, Ms. Cheatle – the Director of the Secret Service, in the context of the assassination attempt when half of these same congressmen (women) show such complicity for the ease of accessibility of automated weapons throughout America which leads potentially to the utilization of such for facilitating countless mass shootings and death across the country.
U.S. elected officials and candidates of late have perpetrated a decline in civility as exemplified within this hearing. It’s aberrant to the cooperative norm imperative. Outrage is justifiable in context of a security failure, but its best simply to execute the outrage administratively and succinctly instead of perpetrating circus like theatre. None of these politicians needed to verbalize a desire for her to resign or be fired during proceedings but every single one of them which I watched took the occasion as if they felt an incumbency to go on the record.
