How the Russia Inquiry Really Began

Vincent J. Curtis

31 Dec 2017

The previous posting on The New York Times story concerning the origin of the “Russia Inquiry” determined that the Mueller investigation leaked the story; that the leaker was likely Peter Strozk; and that the purpose of the story was to provide an alternative theory as to how the FISA court granted wiretaps against members of the Trump campaign, i.e. that the primary evidence presented to the FISA court was not the Steele Dossier (created and paid for by the Hillary campaign), but something else.

The contradictions in the story will now be analyzed to show that the alternative theory and the proof offered in the Times story does not hold up.

The theory floated by the Mueller team is that George Papadopoulos, aged 28, was having drinks in a London bar in May, 2016, with an Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer.  In the course of drunken revelry, Papadopoulos let slip to the Australian that he had been told (by Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese academic) that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Hillary Clinton, stolen in an effort to damage her campaign.  When WikiLeaks published the emails hacked from the DNC more than two months later, the Australian government allegedly alerted the FBI to the conversation, indicating that a Trump campaign official seemed to have prior knowledge of this.  And it was on this basis that the FBI opened its Russian investigation into the Trump campaign and that this was the basis for the FISA court wiretaps authorized against Carter Page and Paul Manafort.

Let’s stop here and assess.  What Papadopoulos allegedly told the Australian diplomat while drunk in London was hearsay upon hearsay.  What the diplomat told his government was further hearsay.  And hearsay piled on hearsay muttered in Britain by a drunk with tenuous ties to the Trump campaign (which was going on in America, by the way) whose contact with Russia was a Maltese academic formed the basis of the application to the FISA court for a wiretap.  Not on George Papadopoulos, but on Carter Page and Paul Manafort!  This is weird.

In May, 2016, the only emails potentially embarrassing to Hillary Clinton that were known were those 33,000 emails deleted and bleachbitted from her secret, private server.  Possibly a state actor, like Russia, could have hacked her server and have got those 33,000 private emails before she had the server destroyed.  But the emails put online by WikiLeaks were not of Hillary, but of the Democratic National Committee, and were embarrassing to Hillary only in the sense that they showed the fix was in for her by the DNC.  The theory that the hacking of the DNC server was by "Russia" was floated by the Democrats at the time - so as to deflect attention from the fact that these emails were authentic.  Hence, it is something of a mystery how the Australian government would (a) associate the WikiLeaks-DNC hack with what George Papadopoulos said months earlier in a London wine bar concerning emails being “dirt” on Hillary, (b) bother to inform the FBI of this apparent connection between the Trump campaign and Russia; and (c) why the FBI would act on it.

The story, to bolster its case of non-Steele dossier reasons for seeking FISA warrants, includes the statement that “John O. Brennan, who retired this year after four years as C.I.A. director, told Congress in May that he had been concerned about multiple contacts between Russian officials and Trump advisors.  Russia, he said, tried to ‘suborn’ members of the Trump campaign.”

In light of this story, Brennan manifestly lied to Congress.  There were no Russian officials in the picture until after the election.  Papadopoulos’s alleged Russian contact was Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor “at a now defunct London academy who had valuable contacts with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”  Mifsud was not a “Russian official.”  The CIA did not uncover Papadopoulos’s conversation with Australian Alexander Downer.  The one Trump link with Russia the CIA could possibly know about was Carter Page, and they had no intelligence on Page’s one trip to Moscow in July, 2016.

From what we now know and from what is in this Times story, there were no contacts at all between “Russian officials” and Trump ‘advisors’.  There were none for the CIA to discover - assuming that they could have discovered them if there were!  The Australians passed their alleged intelligence to the FBI, not to the CIA.  Brennan had no evaluation of the Steele Dossier even though he knew its contents.  Brennan simply lied to Congress to cast a shadow over the legitimacy of the Trump presidency.

The Times story alleges that in late April, 2016, at a London hotel, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that he had just learned from high-level Russian officials in Moscow that the Russians had “dirt” on Mrs. Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails”  (There is no evidence that Papadopoulos discussed this information with the Trump campaign.)  If you think you have heard this line before, you have.  Having “dirt” on Hillary was the basis of a meeting on June 9, 2016, between Don Trump, Jr. Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner and one Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who used that very bait in order to lobby for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act.  That meeting went nowhere.

An attack on the Magnitsky Act also seems to be behind the proposal by a Mr. Millian to Papadopoulos, made after the election, that they form an energy business that would be financed by Russian billionaires who are not under sanctions and open all doors for us at any level all the way to the top.  In other words, if there is a case to be made of Russians trying to contact the Trump campaign, it seems that its purpose was to undermine the Magnitsky Act rather than to influence the outcome of the election.

But this leads to a further point:  These low level contacts, and even that dramatic effort by Natalia Veselnitskaya, demonstrate that high-level contacts and coordination by high Russian authorities were not taking place.  If they were taking place, these low level contacts would have been unnecessary, and the effort to undermine the Magnitsky Act would follow in train from the election of Donald Trump.  So, no need or worry to fuss at lower levels about Magnitsky – unless these people were not from the Russian government at all, but were simply agents of those private Russians who were affected by the Act.

Far from providing an alternative theory as to the use of the Steele Dossier (paid for by the Hillary campaign) to obtain FISA warrants, the story helps Trump because the Times story makes no sense unless there was no collusion between responsible members of the Trump campaign and “Russia.” The story is all about one young guy in London allegedly knowing something surprising and the effort by the FBI to uncover what, if anything, was going on with Trump.  But the story would have us believe that the FBI didn’t wiretap or get close the guy who knew something, but wiretapped other people such as Trump’s campaign manager instead.  And that the FISA court went along with their reasoning.

Now, why would Comey wiretap Manafort unless he was guided by the Steele Dossier, which the FBI had learned about directly from Steele himself, and not from hearsay supplied by the Australian government?  Makes no sense otherwise, unless he had a hate on for Manafort.

Even granting that James Comey believed that Russia was trying to influence the Trump campaign, the abyss he would be staring into should Trump win is that his investigation would undermine the legitimacy of the incoming president – something he shied away from when it came to indicting Hillary Clinton.  The prudent course would have been to do nothing and wait and see.  Collusion with Russia is not a crime – as has been said repeatedly before, and Comey would lack a statutory basis for an investigation.  Perhaps the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover whispered in his ear.

The contradictions in the Times story simply undermine the alternative hypothesis that an intelligence tip from the Australian government prompted the FBI to obtain FISA warrants against Carter Page and Paul Manafort - but not against George Papadopoulos.  The low level contacts with people remotely connected to the Trump campaign establish that there were no high level contacts between Trump and the Putin regime – which is all that matters, at all.  All low level contacts were concerned with overturning the Magnitsky Act, not with coordinating Russian government involvement with the Trump campaign.

The Times story was planted by the Mueller team to distract attention from theory that the Steele Dossier (paid for by Hillary) was used to obtain FISA warrants against Trump campaign officials.  This convenient story is intended to offer Democrats a talking point to counter that claim, and ease the pressure now on certain officials in the FBI and the Mueller team.  Andrew McCabe did not reference the Australian tip in his testimony before Congress, wouldn’t talk about the Steele Dossier forming the basis, and said nothing about another alternative.  The problem with the Papadopoulos story is that it is such thin gruel for a FISA court to issue warrants to wiretap Americans, especially Americans other than Papadopoulos himself.

We can’t know what was going on in the minds of Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and James Comey when they sought FISA warrants, but the application will determine for sure on what basis the warrants were sought.

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Mueller Team Plants Story in New York Times

Vincent J. Curtis

31 Dec 2017

The Trump-hating Fake News media are letting themselves be used as the conduit of a disinformation story that comes straight from the Mueller investigation.  The pressure is on the FBI and the Mueller team because of the belief that the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign and the issuance of FISA warrants to wiretap Trump campaign aides were based upon the discredited Steele Dossier – the one financed by the Hillary campaign and created by former British spy Christopher Steele

The story planted in the New York Times headlined, “How the Russia Inquiry Began: A Campaign Aide, Drinks, and Talk of Political Dirt” written by Sharon LaFraniere, Mark Mazzetti, and Matt Apuzzo, offers a theory of origin alternative to the Steele Dossier theory.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has been pressing the FBI to release details of the FISA warrants were obtained to wiretap, among others, Carter Page and Paul Manafort.  The FBI and the DoJ have not been forthcoming with the information, and the Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is preparing to issue contempt of Congress citations against leading members of the FBI if they fail to deliver the requested information by January 3, 2018.  Nunes wants to have answered the question of whether the FISA warrants were obtained using the Steele Dossier (paid for by Hillary) as the basis of evidence.  The purpose of the Times story planted by the Mueller team is to deflect attention from the Steele Dossier theory by offering the Democrats an alternative theory to push.

That the source of this story is the Mueller team comes from the details it contains – details that can only have come from it and from one of the scalps it has gathered - George Papadopoulos.  Papadopoulos was convicted in July, 2017, of lying to the FBI, and this fact was revealed in September.  He is said to be a “cooperating witness,” which means details that only Papadopoulos could know and that appear in the Times story could only have come from the Mueller team.

How do we know that this leak from the Mueller team is intended to deflect attention from the Steele Dossier?  For the denser among us, the story says so explicitly in several places, starting at the beginning of the fourth paragraph, “The hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump’s associates conspired.”  As I type those words, it occurs to me that Peter Strzok could be a source, since only he among the Mueller team would be in a position to say authoritatively what were the driving factors the led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016.  Further on, the story says, “It was not, as Mr. Trump and other politicians have alleged, a dossier compiled by a former British spy hired by a rival campaign.  Instead it was firsthand information from one of American’s closest intelligence allies.”  (That’s right, Dorothy, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…)

And later on it says, “A team of F.B.I. agents traveled to Europe to interview Mr. Steele in early October, 2016.  Mr. Steele had shown some of his findings to an F.B.I. agents in Rome three months earlier, but that information was not part of the justification to start an counterintelligence inquiry, American officials said.”  (Left unsaid was if the FBI agents upon meeting Steele asked him how he got his information and why he was undertaking such an enterprise as gathering a dossier on Donald Trump.  Such a question would have led to the answer that he was being paid to do so by Fusion GPS, and thus the unravelling of the Hillary campaign laundering effort.)

These are the lines in the story that show that the Mueller team is the source of the Times story, since they say authoritatively things that only Papadopoulos would know – and he is a “cooperating witness.”

-          But when [Joseph Mifsud] found out that [Papadopoulos] was a Trump campaign advisor, he latched onto him, according to court records and emails obtained by The New York Times.  Their joint goal was to arrange a meeting between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Moscow, or between their respective parties.

-          Mr. Papadopoulos was trusted enough to edit the outline of Mr. Trump’s first major foreign policy speech on April 27.  (edit an outline of a speech?  A sign of trust?  These a Papadopoulos’s recollections and opinion of himself.)

-          Senior agents did not discuss [the opening of the investigation into the Trump campaign] at the daily morning briefing, a classified setting where officials normally speak freely about highly sensitive opeations.  (Who but a few of the principles would know this?  Comey, Strzok, McCabe, Lisa Page, and that might be it.)

-          A trip to Moscow by another advisor, Carter Page, also raised concerns at the F.B.I.  (Again, who would know that it was Carter Page’s trip to Moscow that “also raised concerns” but the few mentioned above?)

-          F.B.I. agents debated how aggressively to investigate the campaign’s Russia ties, according to current and former officials familiar with the debate.  (Again, Comey, McCabe, and Strzok.)

-          Even if the odds against a Trump presidency were long, these agents argued, it was prudent to take every precaution.  (again, Strzok and his paramour Lisa Page said these very things in McCabe’s office, according to Strzok’s own emails.  But why would it be ‘prudent?’  If Trump were elected, he’d be president and none of this would matter unless they had in mind the overturning of that result somehow.)

-          Mr. Trump’s improbable victory raised Mr. Papadopoulos’s hopes that he might ascend to a top White House job.

-          Mr. Millian (to Papadopoulos) bragged of his ties to Mr. Trump.  (who would characterize it as ‘bragging’ except the person to whom the bragging was directed, i.e. to Papadopoulos.)

-          Mr. Millian proposed that he and Mr. Papadopoulos form an energy related business that would be financed by Russian billionaires “who are not under sanctions” and would “open all doors for us” at “any level all the way to the top.”  (Unless Papadopoulos was wearing a wire, who but Papadopoulos would recall such a conversation? And if was in an email, that particular would have to come from the Mueller investigation.)

-          Nothing came of his proposal, partly because Mr. Papadopoulos was hoping that Michael T. Flynn, then Mr. Trump’s pick to be national security advisor, might give him the energy portfolio at the National Security Council.  Who but Mr. Papadopoulos would know what was in his own mind, unless he told it to the Mueller investigators?)

These many references to what was in Papadopoulos’s mind and details of intimate conversations with people that the Mueller investigators cannot reach point to Papadopoulos as the originator of the information.  The Times has two possible sources to this information since they did not interview Papadopoulos himself: secret court pleadings or leaks from the Mueller team.  And the Mueller team would have to be the source of the court documents.  Hence the Mueller team provided this story to the Times.  But who could it be?  It would have to be someone knowledgeable going back to July 2016.

The insider information of the FBI thinking and activities could be known only by a very few at the top of the FBI at the time: James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page, all of whom together amount to four and can be described as current and former officials familiar with… since only Comey of the four is a “former” official, and Comey is known to have leaked to the Times before.

The purpose of the story is quite obviously to provide an alternative theory as to how the FBI obtained a FISA warrant against Carter Page that doesn’t include presenting the Steele Dossier to the court as evidence.

In part II, I will go through in greater detail contradictions in the story that demonstrate this story is a smokescreen put out by the Mueller investigation.

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A Hundred Days

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Dec 2017

November being the month of remembrance, November 2017 was a good month to read a newly released history of a battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force of World War I.  It Can’t Last Forever is a history of the 19^th Battalion, CEF, written by David Campbell, a professor of history who received his doctorate for his history of the 2^nd Division of the Canadian Corps, of which the 19^th was a part.

We remember the Canadian Corps of World War I for the mud of Passchendaele and for the brilliant victory at Vimy Ridge.  Perhaps we dimly recall the Hundred Days campaign at the end; but when we think of World War I, we think of the mud of Flanders.

This is unfortunate.  In doing so, we miss is what the Canadian Corps developed into by the end, in virtue of Canadian talent and innovation.  When we think of the Somme, we think of tens of thousands dying for hundreds of yards, while Vimy saw a dramatic gain of 4,500 yards in a morning.

What we might want to reflect upon is that relentless Canadian machine of the Hundred Days campaign - that drove the enemy before it at rates of 6,000 and 7,000 yards a day - using techniques that foreshadowed World War II.

Military theorists date the beginning of maneuver warfare with the German infiltration (or “Hutier”) tactics used in the Operation Michael offensives that began on March 21^st, 1918.  But the technique thought of today as Maneuver Warfare, -blitzkrieg - with its coordinated application of ground strafing aircraft, tanks, advancing infantry, and supporting artillery, was first used against the Germans in the Hundred Day campaign.  By the Canadians.

Yes, the aircraft of WWI were more of a nuisance than a force multiplier, and the tanks never could be relied upon, and were very slow.  But they were there, and impressed the Germans.

By 1918, a platoon in a Canadian Corps battalion was organized into two sections of riflemen, one section of Lewis gunners, and one section of “bombers.”  The bombers were those expert in throwing Mills bombs (which later became the 36 grenade) and in firing rifle grenades (predecessor of the 60 mm mortar).  This latter section, supported or augmented by the Lewis gunners, took out the machine gun nests that formed one of the principle features of the German defense.  They coordinated fire and movement with the infantry sections to overcome pockets of resistance.  By the end of the Hundred Days, tanks had become mechanically reliable enough to provide - at times - armoured cover for advancing infantry, and to destroy wire and some of those nasty machine gun nests.

With its rolling and standing barrages, the artillery fire of a thousand guns became a science.  Lacking wireless radios, detailed control was exerted by field telephone, whose wires were easily broken, and with signal rockets that called for protective fire.  Artillery fire was supplemented by the Canadian Machine Gun Corps, equipped with armoured cars and Vickers Heavy Machine Guns for neutralizing an area with indirect fire plunging vertically into trenches.

Trenches during this time were still dug; but with movement as large and as fast as occurred during the Hundred Days, field defenses were quick and expedient and lacked the sophisticated depth of the Somme or the Hindenburg Line.  By keeping up the pressure, the break in was not the bloodbath it was at the Somme.

During a forward thrust, allied forces pushed as far as their artillery support could reach, and then tended to stall as German artillery began to dominate the field.  Once the allied guns were moved up, increasingly by mechanical transport, forward movement by the infantry would resume.

A striking feature of the Canadian Corps was that was a learning institution.  Starting with Arthur Currie, commander of 1^st Division, and later Corps Commander, and British General Julien Byng, the Canadian leadership strove to learn, disseminate, and apply the lessons of war being fought around them.  When not in immediate reserve, Canadian troops practiced their individual and collective skills.  Every infanteer practiced his marksmanship, his use of the bayonet, throwing Mills bombs and shooting rifle grenades.  They practiced with the Lewis gun, even if that wasn’t their formal job.

After polishing individual skills, section, platoon, and company tactics were practiced.  The men were kept physically fit by long marches and sporting events.  By the Hundred Days, it was understood that each man had to be able to fill in for someone else.  The losses among platoon commanders was the highest proportionately of any rank, and so being able to take command of the platoon in battle was a secondary skill developed in the subordinate leaders.

The Canadian emphasis on patrolling emerged in the Canadian Corps early in the war.  “No man’s land belongs to us.” was one resolution of the Corps, and trench raids were a common feature of the war years, both as a means of protection and as a means of gathering intelligence.  Sniping was another skill applied with vigour in the Corps.  The procedure of “relief in place” was perfected in World War I.  By the Hundred Days, the Canadian Corps were past masters of phase lines, passing through, and vertical and horizontal coordination.

Much bad has been written about the leadership of Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia.  He had little use for British generals and for the alleged expertise of the regulars.  He relied upon the genius of Canada’s civilian professionals to mobilize and to mould the CEF.  He ensured that Canadians fought together in one recognized unit with an eye towards the recognition of Canada after the war as a power independent of Britain. The brilliant performance of the Canadian Corps at Vimy and the power the Corps demonstrated during the Hundred Days fulfilled that vision.

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A version of this appears in the Jan 2018 edition  of Esprit de Corps magazine. 

Progressive Killjoy Tries to Make Sense of Christmas

Vincent J. Curtis

22 Dec 2017

RE: Making Christmas Make Sense (Hamilton Spectator 22 Dec 2017)

After perusing Dr. Latham Hunter’s article, her question, “how does an anti-consumerist atheist celebrate at this time of year?” can be easily answered.  For a dyspeptic progressive, one dwells upon the suffering of people you hate.

The trouble is, Trump has had such a good year, you can’t even image that he is suffering.  That puts killjoy progressives into a foul mood.

What a waste of education Latham has had.  A professor of “communications and cultural studies” she apparently neither knows nor cares much about geography or history.  Her reference to a “Caucasian Christmas” is a pathetic attempt to taint Christianity with racism.  Well, the people of the Caucasus are mostly Muslim.  The word she ought to have used was “European,” or, more precisely, “Roman.”  And Christianity is for anyone and everyone, of any race.  Including her.  The cheap shot alleging racism doesn’t hold.

Her reference to suffering in the world as somehow dispositive of the non-existence of God is one of the most easily refuted of the objections to existence of God.  But it would be too much work for her to look up whether someone of serious intellect has written about her rather obvious objection.  (They have.  Try Edward Feser, for a modern one.)  Instead, she would rather read second and third hand accounts of the origin of certain aspects of the celebration of the birth of Christ continued today, as though these origins too reflected adversely on the existence of God.  It never occurs to her to wonder what really did happen 2000 years ago that caused all these people to do all these things that Latham, from her high intellectual perch, looks down upon.  (In philosophical terms, to discover what is the primary cause that has all these instrumental causes doing what they do.)

It never occurs to her to wonder why man the world over, and from the first one, looked for a deeper meaning to life and the world, and wondered about God  Why did this trait develop during Darwin’s ascent from the apes, a trait she holds in contempt?  There must be a reason.  Why hasn’t she explored the matter herself, with her great intellect?

Christmas makes sense to a lot of people, and has for a long time.  If Hunter took her own thinking seriously, she would ignore everything, be a killjoy to her kids, deny them Christmas presents, and show up for work on Christmas Day.  But she won't.

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It is a wonder what a difference presidential leadership makes.  Two years ago, under President Obama, the expression, “Merry Christmas” was considered suspect, non-inclusive, and perhaps even a little hostile to non-Christians, such as Muslims and atheists.  Now, under President Donald Trump, the expression is back in vogue.  Christians may now feel that have permission for a little cultural pushback against the progressive killjoys like Obama, and Hunter.

A Raging Fool

Vincent J. Curtis

15 Dec 2017

Mr. Peter Schneider, a Hamilton resident, had published an article harshly critical of another article and person.  That person was Rabbi Bernard Baskin, who had the temerity to uphold the view that religion and science were not inherently antagonistic to each other, but go hand-in-hand.  This view is upheld by Pope Benedict XVI, who observed that both science and religion employed reason.  Benedict made the same point in his famous lecture at Regensburg University in 2006. (covered elsewhere in this blog.)

Schneider maintains that religion has nothing to offer science.  He asserts that "it should be self-evident that man created the gods, not the other way around."  Schneider really goes over the top in the hyperbole of his attacks.  One telling extract runs as follows, "Not so with science.  The very recent confirmation that gravitation energy is equivalent to inertial energy is providing invaluable insights into understanding stellar evolution - i.e. WHERE WE CAME FROM.  No, religions have nothing to offer science; they are redundant."

After hubris comes nemesis.  Mr. Schneider's ignorance of philosophy is quite blatant.  He is arguing the position of scientism, though he doesn't understand that he is.  His point on the relationship between religion and science is especially egregious.  Religion obviously offers science nothing, or vice versa, because both offer what they have to human beings, not to each other.  Religion and science are products of human understanding, not independent things that are capable of interacting with each other.

Nevertheless, many people hold the view of scientism that valid knowledge can only come from science.  It is refuted briefly below:

RE: Leave this dogma in the dark it came from

Peter Schneider should stop shouting so loud.  Too many people can hear what a fool he is making of himself.

It is quite obvious that Mr. Schneider has never heard of natural theology; he has probably never heard of scientism, and has certainly never studied philosophy.  If he had he would realize that if something is ‘self-evident,’ it is.  If something should be self-evident, it isn’t and never can be.

In his condemnation religion of any kind, Mr. Schneider is advocating scientism, which holds that valid knowledge can only come from science.  Upon examination, scientism either reduces itself a triviality or is incoherent. That ‘valid knowledge can only come from science’ is a philosophical statement, not a scientific one, and so scientism to start with is incoherent.  Science assumes metaphysical concepts like cause and effect, and so must posit that something outside of science must produce valid knowledge if science is even to get started.  If scientism seeks refuge in holding that science is a branch of philosophy (i.e. natural philosophy), then it becomes trivial and incoherent in holding that other branches of philosophy, like natural theology, do not produce valid knowledge also, since both branches rely on the same set of metaphysical concepts and on reason.

Natural theology provides a rational basis for revealed theology, of which Judaism and Christianity are outstanding examples.  Pope Benedict XVI holds that religion and science are complementary and not mutually exclusive spheres, with their connection being reason and the same basic set of metaphysical concepts.  Both science and religion operate to the benefit of man in different spheres of his being, physical and spiritual.

It is quite true that religion formed the basis for terrible wars in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.  But the 20^th century saw even more terrible wars fought between allegedly scientific ideologies, scientific socialism (communism) and a kind of eugenics (Naziism and other fascisms).  Wars are political events, not religious or scientific ones, and religion and then science were used as masks in drives for political power.

Mr. Schneider’s incoherent rage merely proves how little research he has done on the subject.  For a guy who wants to 'leave this dogma (i.e. religion) in the dark it came from' Mr. Schneider seems very much in the dark himself.

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The Nanfan Treaty and Mohawk Land Claims

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Dec 2017

For many years the Mohawk Indians of the Six Nations reserve have been claiming that the Nanfan treaty, signed in 1701, gives them the privilege of exemption from certain municipal and provincial laws in the Hamilton area.  The current Chief of the Six Nations Elected Council recently published a defense of that position.  In addition, she issued a veiled threat to the Mississauga Indians of the New Credit reserve that they are going to get from the Mohawks the same fate as meted out to the Huron Indians in 1648.

Below is an analysis and rebuttal of Ava Hill’s argument.

The article by Chief of Six Nations Elected Council Ava Hill was full of errors, of history and of reasoning, that lead to a frightening conclusion.  It is not just that Hamilton actually belongs to the Iroquois, but that the Mississaugas of the New Credit are going to get it in the neck.

Let’s begin with the faulty premises that lead to the conclusion.  Hill is quiet wrong when she says that the Nanfan treaty was (a) made with the British Crown, and (b) had placed Mohawk interest in the Hamilton area with the British Crown to protect those interests from the French.  Let’s unpack this nonsense.

No agreement could have been made with the British Crown in 1701 as the British Crown did not come into existence until 1707 with the Act of Union.   But disregarding that detail, if John Nanfan were going to negotiate a treaty on behalf of King William III of England, he would have been issued with a Letters Patent naming him as plenipotentiary of the King in respect of the treaty to be negotiated and signed.  Without a Letters Patent it is idle to claim that the so-called Nanfan Treaty was made with the King of England.  It is impossible to make the case that the King was party to the agreement.  It was an agreement merely between a local official of the colonists and the Iroquois.

Further proof that Mr. Nanfan was not acting as plenipotentiary on behalf of King William III is that the treaty, in seeming to dispose of rights within the territory of King Louis XIV of France, presumes sovereignty of the English authority over that land.  Such presumption would constitute an act of war by the English King upon the King of France.  I’m not sure William would permit a local yokel to commit England to a war with France over a trivial thing like Indian matters.  Indeed, that no war erupted with France over the agreement shows that the English King was not involved in the treaty, and the Most Christian King of France recognized that fact.

Hence, any claim that the Nanfan treaty lay between the Iroquois and the English or British Crown is proven false through the absence of a Letters Patent delegating plenipotentiary powers to acting Governor Nanfan.

The Nanfan Treaty was a local agreement made with the acting Governor of the Province of New York (as the New York colony then was), who aspired to authority over lands of New France into which the colony could expand and in which the future city of Hamilton lay.  It was an agreement of con artists, both laying claim on paper to the belongings of a third party - which neither signatory actually possessed!

The reason the Mohawks negotiated the surrender of their “sovereignty” with Nanfan was their hope of engaging the English on their side against the French, who were allied with the Iroquois’s native enemies.  The Iroquois were shrinking in numbers, and in 1700 the Onondagas (one of the five nations of the Iroquois as they then were) were thought to number merely 600 souls.  By dangling ownership of western New York and possibly southern Ontario as well before the English of New York, the Mohawks cynically sought powerful allies against the French and their native allies.

But the Mohawks engaged in double-dealing.  Ms. Hill neglected to mention the Great Peace of Montreal, also signed in 1701, between the Governor of New France and forty aboriginal nations, including the five Iroquois nations.  The Iroquois agreed to remain neutral in case of conflict between the French and the English, and all parties agreed to have the French arbitrate disputes between contracting tribal parties.  Previously, the French had made war upon the Iroquois in support of their Indian allies.  What the Great Peace of Montreal means is that the Iroquois had no unique sovereignty over the Hamilton area recognized by anyone, French or Indian – including Iroquois Indian.  The tenor was that New France in the southern Ontario and far western New York area was open land under general French sovereignty.

Indeed, in acknowledging that the Iroquois were not in possession of southern Ontario and that the area was occupied without opposition by the Mississaugas moving in from the north, Hill acknowledges that the Iroquois sovereignty over the Hamilton area was purely aspirational.  Even further, having acknowledged that the Iroquois annihilated the original occupants, the Hurons, the Neutrals, and the Eries, before withdrawing themselves, it seems to say that there are no peoples authentically aboriginal to the Hamilton area at all.  Peoples of aboriginal descent who presently live here are as much occupiers of this land as Europeans are.

Ms. Hill’s claim that the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 recognizes the Nanfan Treaty or anything like it is false.  Article XV of the peace treaty between Britain and France required the inhabitants of Canada not to molest the Indian allies of Britain, and vice versa, in the hope and aim of expanding trade and commerce.  Sovereignty over the lands of North America were quite explicitly divided among France, Britain, and Spain, and nothing like an acknowledgement of a sovereignty exercised by “Indians … or other natives of America” is admitted anywhere.

The Nanfan Treaty is busted, not acknowledged, by the Treaty of Utrecht.  Tellingly, after Utrecht, the Hamilton area still lay in New France, not in the Province of New York or any other British land.  The natives friendly to either the British or the French were free to move about the land as they wished without molestation by British or French authorities or subjects.

The Dish with one Spoon treaty was an agreement among Indian tribes and not entered into by either the British or the French.  That treaty seems to have been superseded by the Great Peace of Montreal.

Britain conquered New France in the Seven Year’s War, and France ceded sovereignty of that territory to Britain in the Treaty of Paris of 1763.  In the same year, King George III issued his famous Royal Proclamation that concerned, in part, the treatment of native peoples in now British North America.  The proclamation came as a shock to the British Parliament, since the act of the King was made without reference to Parliament and seemed to imply that North America was a possession of the Crown alone, even though Parliament had all the money required for its governance.  Nevertheless, it is understood to be “the first recognition by the British Crown of aboriginal rights.”   Being the first, what it allegedly recognizes as “rights” is up for grabs.  The way it was interpreted immediately was that colonial expansion required a settlement with the local natives beforehand as a means of keeping the peace.  Who the local natives were was decided as those in physical possession at the time of the settlement.

The Iroquois were not in physical possession of the Hamilton area in 1784, for the British settled with the Mississaugas in order to acquire land for their Mohawk allies who were displaced in the aftermath of the American Revolution.  Certainly, the Mississaugas had no reason to acknowledge the “Nanfan Treaty” because they weren’t a party to it and they occupied the land in question.  For their part, the British did not invoke it as an excuse to take the land from the Mississaugas without compensation.  Insofar as the Nanfan Treaty was an aspirational grab of French territory, that ghost of alleged sovereignty expired in the Treaty of Utrecht, and was certainly buried by the settlement with the Mississaugas of 1784.

Now comes the revenge of the Mohawks.  Ms. Hill makes the case that based on race and descent, the Mississaugas are no more.  Those who call themselves Mississaugas are in fact Mohawk, and hence, by false reasoning, the claims of the Mississaugas now belong to the Mohawks of Six Nations, not simply expired with the tribe.  Strangely, she invokes the dead and buried Nanfan Treaty rather than the claim of the now said-to-be-absorbed Mississaugas as grounds for saying that Hamilton is properly Mohawk territory.

There is no money in invoking the Mississauga claim, since that has already been settled.

By a false statements of history, by misinterpretation, and by faulty reasoning, the chief of the Six Nations elected council arrives at the conclusion that Hamilton is by rights Mohawk land, when at best it would be land settled with the Mississaguas, who physically possessed it at the time, and the Iroquois never.  From the tenor and thrust of the argument made by Ms Hill, Canadians should be feeling for their wallets, and the Mississaugas of the New Credit feeling for their necks.

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*UPDATE*  On Dec 27, 2017, it was announced that the Ontario government would give the Mohawks on Six Nations reserve $100 million over the next twenty years.  Some $12.5 million will be paid immediately, and $4.5 million will be paid annually over the remaining 19 years.  Since the Mohawk claim against the Brantford casino is not being settled by this payout, and no other announcement was forthcoming from the Ontario government, what Ontario is getting exactly for this money is not clear at this moment.  Nevertheless, the warning that "Canadians should be feeling for their wallets" certainly appears prescient.

No word yet on the fate of the Mississaugas of New Credit Reserve. 

Is Free Trade with China anti-Populist?

Vincent J. Curtis

6 Dec 2017

It is sometimes hard to tell if Prime Minister Trudeau is as confused as he sounds, or if he is merely playing to the cognitive dissonance of his progressive audience.  His comments concerning trade with China provide several examples.

Progressivism stands for rule by experts, in accordance with the most advanced ideas of the elites.  While the agreement of the unwashed with the progressive program is welcomed, objection from the unwashed is a sign of the deplorable in the unwashed.  And Mr. Trudeau proudly flaunts his progressivism.

When Mr. Trudeau speaks of pursuing free trade with China as a means of combatting the rising tide of populism, he engages in progressive cognitive dissonance.  No, I don’t mean the contradiction between his boasts about seeking free trade with China and his inability to announce the start of talks.  More on that in a moment.  I mean his concern that labor or working people should benefit from such a deal.  What is populism except the rejection of the rule of experts – any kind of expert, by the unwashed, by working people, by labor?  What is populism except giving the people what they think want, regardless of its wisdom or unwisdom?  And the unwashed are leery of a free trade deal with countries like China.

The problem with some free trade agreements is that highly paid western labor gets squeezed out by the poor labor in third world countries.  The migration of the textile industry around the world seeking the lowest cost labor market is a case in point.

China would like a free trade agreement with Canada.  But Trudeau’s progressive trade deal concerns itself with stopping the burning of coal and transgender bathrooms - matters irrelevant, even silly, to the Chinese, who want to talk about the free movement of goods and money.  The Chinese aren’t about to give up their advantages if it means accepting a lower balance of trade with Canada, and what is this except the position of Donald Trump with a Chinese face?

For all the association and subtle putdown of “populism” as low brow, Donald Trump is not a populist.  As has been observed elsewhere, he is a centrist from the age of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, i.e. of the period between 1995 and 2005.  Trump’s position on illegal immigration is the same as that espoused by Bill Clinton when he was in office.  The Wall along the Mexican border was approved by legislation in 2006, and all Trump wants to do is build the thing.  The repeal of Obamacare, and the tax reform bill returns those matters to the status quo of 2003.  Trump’s position on Islam is nothing but the common sense of New Yorkers in the aftermath of 9/11.  Trump relishes the culture war – the subject of much of his tweets – and his position is that of the common sense of his construction laborers acquired over 40 years.

Mr. Trudeau drifts about on the world stage like the good-looking lightweight he is.  When he deplores populism and speaks of progressive trade deals as a kind of antidote, it is hard to tell if his analysis is as shallow as it comes across, or if he is just playing to the weaknesses of his audience.

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Canada - China Free Trade

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Dec 2017

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau does have leverage over the Chinese, though he may not be aware of it.

Due to its large balance of trade surplus with Canada, China has acquired a large number of Canadian dollars.  It can dispose of them in two ways: buy Canadian goods or buy Canadian assets, returning the cash to Canadian hands in exchange.  So far, China has preferred to buy Canadian assets because they amount to a better long term investment than, say,  food or beaver pelts for the Chinese market.

If Mr. Trudeau makes it clear that he is going to disallow the purchase by China of Canadian assets, China will have to choose either to stop exports to Canada, demand payment in US dollars,  or start buying more Canadian made goods.  They would like to buy our crude oil, but we can’t get a pipeline over the Rockies and to a western port.

Either way, a formal free trade deal with China won’t be necessary.  Simply by playing the cards we have, we can get China to buy more of our goods by forbidding the buying of our capital assets.

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Running out of Time

Vincent J. Curtis

12 Oct 2017

If there are common elements in the government’s acquisition of new equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces, they are tardiness, indecision, and a lack of imagination.  All three elements are at play in the selection of interim replacements for the CF-18 fleet, or more precisely a lack of replacements.

The Liberal government boxed itself into a mess.  To spite the legacy of the Harper government, the Trudeau Liberals announced that the F-35 would be the last aircraft on earth that the government would buy to replace the CF-18.  Instead, a prolonged and detailed examination of potential replacements was ordered, postponing a final decision.  The time would be filled by requiring world-renowned aircraft manufacturers to prove to the satisfaction of the Canadian government their capabilities to produce a world-renowned fighter aircraft, and then to have them teach our experts in the RCAF the art of sucking eggs in precise and excruciating detail.

Trouble in paradise arose when it became clear that the existing fleet of CF-18s on NORAD deployment would not last long enough for the Trudeau temporizing to play itself out.  An “interim replacement” needed to be found.

The obvious choice was to acquire more F/A-18s.  However, Boeing had moved on and the closest new thing to the old aircraft was the F/A-18 E/F Super-Hornet, built on an airframe some twenty-five percent larger than the original Hornet model.

No problem.  The Super-Hornet was being sold by Boeing as completely interoperable with the older Hornet, and training and transition disruption to the new model would be minimal.  Then, the Trudeau government made very public its displeasure with Boeing’s demanding the U.S government impose import duties against a Canadian government favorite, Bombardier.  In October, trade sanctions were imposed, import duties being a crippling 220 percent.

There is lots of hypocrisy to go around.  Boeing is the largest client of the U.S. Import-Export bank, and Boeing doesn’t make an aircraft that competes in the same marketplace as the Bombardier one.  Boeing argues that it saw Airbus, its largest competitor world-wide, start in the same way Bombardier did: as a small, regional manufacturer supported by government subsidies.  And Boeing is doing extremely well, so well in fact that it could well do without an order for Super-Hornets from Canada.

The Trudeau government would be eating a good deal of crow to have to purchase Super-Hornets from Boeing, and has started to look around for something else.  There is talk of buying used Hornets from Australia, and Lockheed-Martin is devilishly offering F-35s as “interim replacements.”

The obvious solution that is being missed requires an entrepreneurial mind to see.  That solution is to truly embrace the interim notion, and to buy new F-16s to replace the old CF-18s, committing to employing them in the NORAD role for the next ten to twenty years, postponing a decision on Gen 5 fighters for, well, the next generation.

The F-16 is still being produced by Lockheed-Martin, and is presently in its V for Viper model.  Because the Fighting Falcon is made by Lockheed-Martin, we are keeping alive the company that may yet deliver us the F-35 – in twenty years’ time.  The F-16V is configurable as an air-superiority dogfighter, or as a ground-attack aircraft; and the F-16 remains a front-line aircraft today in either role.  It will remain a first-line fighter aircraft for the next decade or two.  As a fighter platform, it outclasses the Super-Hornet and the F-35; neither aircraft would want to engage an F-16 in a dogfight.  The F-35 would need to rely on its stealthiness and long-range missiles to defeat an F-16 in aerial combat, i.e. before the F-16 saw it.

The chief reason the RCAF chose the F/A-18 Hornet over the F-16 thirty-five years ago was because the Hornet and two engines and the Viper one.  The second engine was supposed to be a margin of safety when flying over the high Arctic.  But these thirty-five years of practical experience demonstrated the perfect reliability of the engine of the F-16, and the F-35, which possesses only one engine, did not find its singularity an obstacle to acceptance by today’s RCAF.  Looking back, choosing the F/A-18 over the F-16 was a mistake.

The solution to the Liberal government’s fighter dilemma is to fully embrace the interim idea.  The perfect shouldn’t become the enemy of the good.  There is no tactical reason for the Canadian government to buy a stealthy Gen 5 fighter for immediate service in NORAD.  But for the age of its airframes, the CF-18 Hornet would be adequate in that role for the foreseeable future.  F-16Vs new off the production line can fill the same role as the Hornet, and still be a relevant aircraft anywhere else in the world.

The government could buy F-16s in blocks of twenty at a time, with the intention of converting the RCAF over to that aircraft as its mainline fighter as the Hornets age out.  The project would have a timeline of twenty years, with the intention of reviewing the status of fighter aircraft technology at that time.  Commitment to the interim idea addresses the issue of retraining and multiple parts lists.  Interim, in this case, means twenty years and not five.

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A version of this appeared in Esprit de Corps magazine Vol 24 Issue 10.

Trudeau Apologizes to the LGBTQ Community

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Dec 2017

RE: Sexual Minorities Deserved Apology

The Hamilton Spectator editorialized in favor of Justin Trudeau's apology to the LGBTQ community.  What went unreported is that the moral picture is not as clear and one-sided as Trudeau, the sycophant media, and the LGBTQ community would have you believe.

While I am generally in agreement with the tenor of the editorial, it was in some respects less nuanced that it ought to have been.

Permit me to observe that when a Conservative government does something wrong, it is a taken as sign of the evils of right-wing conservativism.  But when Liberal government does something wrong, it is Canada’s fault.  And yesterday, that is how it was presented. (Pace Jonah Goldberg.)

The most recent apology concerns the treatment of homosexuals in government service from the 1950s to the 1990s.  In those days, a country called the Soviet Union existed and its heads of state for the period in question were named Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev.  They were on the other side of the cold war, and Canada was intimately connected with the defence of North America against nuclear attack.  The Soviet Union actively spied on Canada, as the Gouzenko affair proved, and spies supplied the Soviet Union with the secrets of America’s atomic bomb.  The threat of atomic war was real.

In addition, homosexuality made one a security risk in those days because public exposure as a homosexual was highly embarrassing and considered quite a shameful thing.  If the Soviets discovered that someone in, say, the Communications Security Establishment was homosexual, or that a lowly communications clerk aboard a navy ship was homosexual, then blackmail of those individuals could lead to untold intelligence riches for our enemy.  Security against spying was why the government was so concerned in those days about “who one slept with and who one chose to love.”  (You would not think it funny if your secret Revenue Canada file was leaked to the Russians in order that someone else's secret be kept secret by them.)

And it was not that these people were fired on account of their homosexuality, but on account of their lying about it.  Joining the Canadian Forces in those days (and now) required an extensive personal interview and the completion of a detailed personal questionnaire about oneself, at the end of which one swore that the answers given were truthful.  Well, if one of those questions concerned one's sexual predilections and past practices, and in order to get enrolled one lied on the form, well that is cause for dismissal from the service – for lying on the application.

The people being apologized to yesterday lied somewhere, somehow, in order to get into the position they were in, and from which they were released.

So the moral here is not as clear-cut as “they were done wrong, period.”  They had to do something wrong too for that “wrong” to be done to them.  Namely, lie.

Nowadays, homosexuality is not the publicly shameful thing it once was, and for that reason should no longer constitute a secret whose threatened exposure could blackmail one into treasonous conduct.  It is only from today’s perspective and with things taken out of context that we can accept Mr. Trudeau’s shameless virtue-signalling yesterday as due simply and on the merits presented.  The actual facts make the moral situation much more complex and the moral responsibility less one-sided.

The larger lesson, that governments should be careful, is one to which progressives utterly ignore, and only observe in others in the breach.

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The Good Systemic Racism in Canada

Vincent J. Curtis

30 Nov 2017

RE: Challenging the ‘marry out, move out’ rules.

When social justice warriors complain about evil systemic racism in Canada, they never mean the Indian Act and the special provisions in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that establish allowances for Indigenous rights over and above the rights of ordinary Canadians.  By exclusion, SWJ’s must believe that these are good forms of systemic racism.

There are sound reasons for the existence and preservation of systemic racism in Canada as it pertains to Indigenous peoples.  The settlement treaties of the 19^th and 20^th centuries placed Canada under the burden of upholding certain financial responsibilities in respect of certain kinds of people, and a legal definition of what a person needed to be in order to qualify as one of those special kinds of people to which Canada owed a financial responsibility, is necessary  For example, exemption from taxation and financial support were due Indigenous peoples under treaty and other laws, and who - exactly - benefits requires a legal definition, especially since who is Indigenous is not as clear-cut nowadays as it was in the 19^th century.  Since aboriginal is distinguished as a matter of race and descent, systemic racism is necessary as a matter of law in Canada.

The ‘marry-out, move out’ rule on aboriginal reserves follows naturally from the idea that being Indigenous means being of a certain race and even tribe.  If you aren’t of that tribe, then you don’t belong in that special place reserved for that tribe.  To think otherwise means that the city of Montreal or some other tribe could informally establish a suburb on the reserve and push out the tribe or take over the reserve that it was set aside for.  Of course such rules are discriminatory, but one can logically expect nothing else.

What the plaintiffs in the case at issue are running into are contradictions in the law on account of principles of equality and yet a special status for Indigenous.  The band council and the pure Mohawk tribal membership (the Defendants) seek racial purity on the reserve lest they lose control of Mohawk identity– to an overpopulation of Metis peoples.  The means of enforcing racial purity on the reserve are unpleasant harassment.

Ultimately, the principle of tribal and racial identity must prevail over other rights if the principles of tribal and racial identity are to be preserved at all.  If it is not, then there is nothing in law to stop the overrunning of Indigenous reserves, not by non-Indigenous, but by other Indigenous not of the tribe, such as, in this case, Metis (which are classified as a category of Indigenous.)

Canadian law must maintain a systemic racism and even tribalism in respect of Indigenous peoples.  The unfortunate consequence of this is that the principle of equality must take second place, and that even differences in tribe must be allowed for in disputes between Indigenous disputants.

The only other solution is to abolish the concept of special Indigenous identity, which was proposed in 1970 by Pierre Trudeau and was rejected soundly by the Indigenous people themselves.

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Progressive Cognitive Dissonance

Vincent J. Curtis

27 Nov 2017

RE: Gender chapters in trade deals & Trudeau calls on men to help end violence against women.

Canada's precious Prime Minister calls for men to end violence against women, and wants to include gender protection in a re-written NAFTA.

What is this talk of calling on ‘men’ to end violence against ‘women’?  What is the business of having ‘feminist’ gender chapters trade deals – when there are allegedly 57 genders?  Which of the 57 qualify as ‘feminine’?

These messages of progressivism don’t add up.  According to progressive gender theory, to which Mr. Trudeau unhesitatingly subscribes, ‘men’ and ‘women’ refer to social constructs unrelated to any underlying reality.  We are what we think we are, which explains why there are 57 genders and subgenders under progressivist theory, and not just 2, as those who believe in the science of biology and anatomy think.

So, how can those of one arbitrary social construct be called upon to stop their violence against those of some other arbitrary social construct, when there is such a thing as ‘gender fluidity’?  And which, precisely, of the 57 is Mr. Trudeau referring to when he says ‘men’ and ‘women.’?

Progressivism is in a state of cognitive dissonance when it upholds modern gender theory and admits of age-old problems that contradict modern gender theory.  Could it be that the science of biology is correct after all?  Why do progressives believe in some sciences but not others?  They believe in Climate "Science" but not biology.  They can’t have it both ways.

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Defending the Distinct Society

Vincent J. Curtis

17 Nov 2017

RE:  Veil Law Must Be Changed

The Hamilton Spectator editorialized against Quebec's Bill 62 with fallacious arguments that a child could see through: 

Beginning with his statement that “It is the duty of the Canadian Prime Minister to defend the rights of every Canadian.” it is clear that the editor slept through the classes in logic and civics, if any, that were taught in J-school.  Put bluntly: no, it isn’t; and belief in such still aren’t grounds for special pleading on behalf of immigrants.

The editorial amounts to special pleading on behalf of Muslims that would be no different from any made by the Muslim Brotherhood.  Muslims are special, and therefore should be exempt from the requirements of Western law, goes the refrain.  The editorial amounts special pleading for Muslims in the face of another case of special pleading, that of Quebec’s distinct society - on account of the predominant French culture in La Belle Province.

The editor must have been in diapers when the Parti Quebecois government of Quebec passed Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language.  That legislation was seen as an act of oppression against the English speaking minority in Quebec, but nevertheless English Canada (as it was then known) swallowed the Bill in the interests of national unity.

Bill 62 is a logical continuation of Bill 101, an act asserting that French culture must predominate in Quebec.  France has an anti-burka law, and so Quebec can have one.  What the editorial fails to explain is why Muslim specialness ranks higher than the specialness of Quebec, given that we have already accepted the specialness of our Quebec fellow countrymen while niqab wearing Muslims are generally immigrants. (Western converts have no excuse.)

It is not the business of English Canada to intervene in Quebec’s cultural matters, but his belief in the specialness of Muslims leads the editor to argue that we undermine settled matters in the realm of national unity.

What is the next cultural Islamic matter the editor will defend, FGM?

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The Brotherhood argues against Quebec Bill 62

Vincent J. Curtis

2 Nov 2017

You have to hand it to Raza Khan.  Two days after another ISIS inspired terrorist attack occurs in New York City by a Muslim immigrant, this veritable spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood is out there defending the right of Muslims to mask their faces in Canada.

Khan admits that the wearing of facial coverings by Muslim women is a choice – a choice he argues must be respected by Western society.  Why that particular choice must be respected is that to do otherwise would involve Western society in hypocrisy(!) in that it would be tantamount to forcing Muslim women what to wear.  (Of course, smoking a cigarette is a personal choice also, but trying doing that anywhere you like!)

He further argues that “right-wing, racists and bigots who long to see a blond-haired, blue-eyed, white Canada” are the ones fighting for Quebec’s Bill 62, and for that reason alone resistance to creeping Sharia Supremacism must be resisted.  (The irony of classifying one’s enemy in this by race and appearance is lost upon Khan arguing against "racism.")

He asks if we would be having this conversation in Dubai, India, Africa, or Turkey.  Well, I would invite Khan and his colleagues to go to those liberal and enlightened places and find out.  He might find congenial opinions in Dubai, Turkey, and certain countries in Africa, but in India, I doubt he would find a receptive audience for Sharia Supremacism.  If he tried to argue for Western cultural and legal supremacism in Dubai, Turkey, and Africa, he would be lucky merely to rot in prison.

What is the next Muslim cultural practice that we must tolerate - Female Genital Mutilation?

As a formally blond-haired but still blue-eyed white Canadian, let me say that Khan doesn’t understand squat about Canadian society.  If we can regulate smoking cigarettes, we can regulate the wearing of masks in public.  And to hell with Sharia Supremacism.  There are plenty of other places on earth to luxuriate in that.  Let Quebec be Quebec.

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UN Report says Paris Agreement Targets leave "Alarming Gap"

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Nov 2017

The UN report is filled with nonsense on stilts, and its assumptions fly in the face of millennia of human experience.  Its basic complaint is that western politicians are not overpromising enough to meet the false goals of the compromised Paris agreement.

Apparently, the lesson King Canute gave the world about mankind’s power over the forces of nature has been forgotten.  The Paris agreement was intended to halt the rise in global temperatures by some 2°C by the end of the century entirely through the actions of man.  The payoff for today’s pain is 83 years from now.  Of this rise, Canada’s contribution will be less than 0.02°C.

Those inclined to believe the promises of politicians won’t be alive to see those promises falsified, nor will those who made those promises be alive to suffer condign humiliation for having made them.  Hence, Canadians have to suffer economically for something they will never see, something trivial, and something easily overtaken by other natural events in the intervening century.

Surprisingly, even this political freebie - making promises having never to be fulfilled - is being looked at suspiciously by Liberal politicians, precisely because the pain is inflicted today.  That pain is the despoliation of the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan, producers of most of Canada’s oil and natural gas.

But that was the whole point of climate change alarmism going back to the Kyoto Accord: to cripple the successful western economies. And the call was made by people who wouldn’t personally suffer the pain.  Leaving most of the world’s fossil fuels in the ground is going to cripple the world’s economy.  And that “really tricky conversation about what economic transition looks like for the country” will be tricky because the Canadian government has no authority to direct the economy thusly in peacetime, and because there is no one on the other side of the conversation.

The wealth required to pay for the new knowledge and the new technologies by which mankind can tackle the problems of the future will go unearned by crippling the world’s economy.

But those who call for such action are those who personally will not suffer in consequence of their policy recommendations.  Other people will.

The American withdrawal from the Paris agreement has fatally compromised it, and so there is nothing but moral posturing left in it.  And that moral posturing will be made by people who won’t be personally harmed by the doing of what they call for.

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Hillary - the Harvey Weinstein of Washington

Vincent J. Curtis

4 Nov 2017

It is easy for the Trump-haters to waffle on about how evil the man is, and to make dark insinuations about his having stolen the election.  The Trump-haters never seem to confront the fact that their alternative was Hillary Clinton.

At the moment, the Trump-haters’ candidate is embroiled in three controversies equal in scale to Watergate.  After a year of lying about it, it turns out that Hillary’s campaign bought and paid for the so-called Steele Dossier, the salacious and unproven allegations which formed the justification for the Mueller Inquiry.  The Steele dossier was Hillary’s campaign ruse and was intended to destroy Trump’s candidacy.  It got out of control, and America’s intelligence services took it for real.  And it was all fake Russian disinformation with dashes possibly of disinformation from rogue spooks in MI6 and the FBI!  For a year, all those associated with the creation of the dossier lied about their their not being involved.  Even now, those who ought to have known deny knowing anything about it.

On Thursday it was revealed that Hillary bought the bankrupt Democratic National Committee in August, 2015, and, through that, the control which guaranteed she got the party’s nomination.  Through willing accomplices, the DNC was made to look like an independent operation, when in fact it was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Clinton Campaign.  Bernie Sanders' loss was, at least in part, a result of rigging.  And when it is said that the Steele dossier was paid for by both the DNC and Hillary's campaign, it was all Hillary's money.

Now the Uranium One deal, documented in the book Clinton Cash, which saw the Clinton Foundation pocket $140 million off the books while Bill was personally tipped to the tune of half a million, is reaching the public consciousness.

What is also gradually coming to light is what a fetid, dirty, lying administration Barack Obama ran - one worthy of a third-world, tin-pot, sanctimonious tyrant, with all of its lying courtiers – many of whom were employed in the press.  If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor; Benghazi, the Iran deal, selectively releasing the bin Laden document trove and hiding the rest, the unmasking of Trump associates and other political enemies, the creation of echo chambers for know-nothing reporters, ISIL, treating Beau Bergdahl as a returning hero who served "with honor and distinction"  Nothing but sanctimonious lying and deception.

The choice of the Trump-haters would have continued the oppressive lies of her erstwhile predecessor, with the added insult of Hillary treating the presidency as Eldorado – an office for sale, just as she treated her Secretaryship of State.

Hillary Clinton would have been the Harvey Weinstein of Washington – someone known by insiders as being deeply personally corrupt but whose corruption was tolerated and kept secret because she validated the right political opinions, and because none of the insiders were personally affected by her corrupt ways.

The American public understood the stakes and elected Donald Trump – warts and all.  He had all the right enemies, and his perceived uncouthness simply added relish to the offence he would cause among all the right people.  Perhaps there can be cosmic justice here on earth.

Despite everything, Donald Trump is doing well as president.  His handling of foreign policy has been superb, shining far greater in comparison to the Obama disaster.  The stock markets have boomed since his election, and the America economy is fast reviving.  In the teeth of opposition, progress is being made on Obamacare, tax reform, immigration reform, regulation abatement, and the Wall.

Far more annoying to the Trump-haters is that Trump is actually fulfilling the election promises he made – because the people who elected him expected him to and want him to.  Trump is their vessel, and he knows it.  When Trump is seen proudly saluting the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, his supporters are reminded of the undisguised contempt in which Barack Obama held their part of America.

Trump may not be loved, but he is doing what he said he would, and that in itself is appreciated as a refreshing change in American politics, and that is why he will be re-elected.

So the Trump-haters can prattle on all they want.  But they all lack the courage to examine the consequences that their choice would have brought.

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UN Alarming Gap Report Nonsense on Stilts

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Nov 2017

RE: Paris agreement targets leave “alarming gap”: UN report

The Paris agreement on cutting carbon dioxide emissions was fatally compromised by the withdrawal of the United States from the deal.  Never mind that China and India (emitters #1 and #4) had no obligations under the deal.  Nevertheless, zombie members of the agreement, such and Canada and the UN, persist in trying to reduce their emissions while thumping their chests in moral posturing.

A UN report was released recently criticizing, among others, Canada for failing to raise its targets for cutting emissions, saying Canada is one of the biggest laggards; that not only are Canada's existing targets are too low, but that Canada does not yet have in place policies for meeting those. (Has the UN ever even heard of laissez-faire capitalism?)  Canada's Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna engaged in orbiter dicta when asked about it, and that left her exposed to attacks from the enviro-wacko left - in the person of Catherine Abreu, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada (where do they get their money to operate?).  Abreu kindly offered to sacrifice Canada's oil and natural gas production to meet goals, and said that the Canadian government needed to intervene with an Industrial policy for which it has no legal or moral authority, short of wartime.  No wonder even progressive Liberals blanch at taking action to meet their moral posturing.

The UN report is filled with nonsense on stilts, and its assumptions fly in the face of millennia of human experience.  Its basic complaint is that western politicians are not overpromising enough to meet the false goals of the compromised Paris agreement.

Apparently, the lesson King Canute gave the world about mankind’s power over the forces of nature has been forgotten.  The Paris agreement was intended to halt the rise in global temperatures by some 2°C by the end of the century entirely through the actions of man.  The payoff for today’s pain is 83 years from now.  Of this rise, Canada’s contribution will be less than 0.02°C.

Those inclined to believe the promises of politicians won’t be alive to see those promises falsified, nor will those who made those promises be alive to suffer condign humiliation for having made them.  Hence, Canadians have to suffer economically for something they will never see, something trivial, and something easily overtaken by other natural events in the intervening century.

Surprisingly, even this political freebie - making promises having never to be fulfilled - is being looked at suspiciously by Liberal politicians, precisely because the pain is inflicted today.  That pain is the despoliation of the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan, producers of most of Canada’s oil and natural gas.

But that was the whole point of climate change alarmism going back to the Kyoto Accord: to cripple the successful western economies. And the call was made by people who wouldn’t personally suffer the pain.  Leaving most of the world’s fossil fuels in the ground is going to cripple the world’s economy.  And that “really tricky conversation about what economic transition looks like for the country” will be tricky because the Canadian government has no authority to direct the economy thusly in peacetime, and because there is no one on the other side of the conversation.

The wealth required to pay for the new knowledge and the new technologies by which mankind can tackle the problems of the future will go unmade by crippling the world’s economy.

But those who call for such action are those who personally will not suffer in consequence of their policy recommendations.  Other people will.

The American withdrawal from the Paris agreement has fatally compromised it, and so there is nothing but moral posturing left in it.  And that moral posturing will be made by people who won’t be personally harmed by the doing of what they call for.

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Creeping Trumpism, Bill 62, and the Rohingya in Walkom's World

Vincent J. Curtis

24 Oct 2017

RE:  With Bill 62, Trumpism gains a foothold in Canada

Bill 62 is Quebec's answer to thrusting Sharia Suprmacism in people's faces.  The first stirrings of legislation for banning the wearing of burkas, niqabs, and other facial coverings in public occurred in the 2015 Federal election.  Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom decried Bill 62 as "creeping Trumpism," which requires Trumpism to have existed in Canada before Donald Trump was even a candidate for the Republican nomination.

Columnist Thomas Walkom, after showing hopeful signs of lucidity recently, has relapsed into terminal progressive incoherence.  As even he admits, the business of what to do about facial coverings in Canada preceded the candidacy of Donald Trump; but another example of that business is held forth as a sign of “Trumpism.”  Effects precede causes in Walkom’s World.

It must be that Donald Trump and Trumpism are now reduced to meaning, “something undesirable,” words you assign to impart opprobrium to the matter at issue. [Readers of George Orwell will get the reference. - VJC]

Facial coverings of women is not mandated in Islam; all the Islam requires is modesty in feminine dress.  Facial coverings are cultural in origin, not religious; and so to say that banning facial coverings is anti-Muslim is to confuse the accidental with the essential.  If Bill 62 is only going to affect 100 or so women, it can’t be anti-Muslim given the tens of thousands of Muslim women it does not affect.

Bill 62 is the banning of a cultural practice that has no place in Western society, and it is hardly a Toronto Anglo’s place to tell French Quebec how to regulate cultural practices in La Belle Province.  English Canada accepted Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language, so it can accept Bill 62 also.  Besides, Quebec is only following France’s lead in regulating this cultural aspect, as they are entitled to do, given the recognition of Quebec as a distinct society.

Walkom is no doubt utterly mystified as to why the Buddhists in Burma rose as one to drive the Rohingya out of their country and into Bangladesh.  Another sign of rising Trumpism perhaps?

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So, what is the next cultural-religious practice of Islam that progressives will defend in the West - Female Genital Mutilation?