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?

When Police Lie about Guns

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Oct 2017

Susan Clairmont is a reporter for the Hamilton Spectator, and covers the police/major crime beat.  Today, she wrote a column that reported the desire of the HPS to replace their 12 gauge shotguns with C8 (assault) rifles in police cruisers, and tried to explain why the police wanted the change.

Clairmont does understand much about guns, and, perhaps not wishing to burn her police sources, merely copy-typed the police description of the C8 as being "high-powered" and "short-barrelled."  The C8 is a variant of the M-16, and is about the size of an M-4.  Hence, the description of "short-barrelled" is correct, but the "high-powered" part is a wonder, especially when you compare the power of the 5.56 NATO cartridge to that of 00-buck 12 gauge.  What are the police up to by describing a 5.56 NATO firing weapon as "high-powered?"

So I asked Clairmont:

I read your column of today, headlined “Front-line police waiting for bigger guns.”  Throughout the piece, you referred to the particular rifle the police wanted, the C8, as “high-powered,” and I had to wonder what game the police were playing by describing this weapon as “high-powered.”  In the world of rifles, it is not high-powered.

The C8 is a variation of the C7 rifle, the standard infantry rifle of the Canadian army.  Other variants of this rifle include the M-16, and the M-4.  The semi-automatic version sold on the civilian market is the AR-15.  (The AR stands for Armalite, not Assault Rifle.  Armalite was the company that developed it and the AR-10 in the 1950s.)  The C8 is capable of fully automatic fire.

Whether a rifle is considered “high-powered” or not depends on the cartridge it fires.  The cartridge fired by the C8/C7/M-16/M-4/AR-15 is the .223 Remington, or the 5.56 mm NATO, and this is an intermediate powered cartridge.  What would be considered “high-powered” are the older style military cartridges, such as the 7.62 NATO/.308 Winchester, the .303 British, the 30-06, the 8 mm Mauser, 7.62 X 54R Russian, and so forth.  The AR-10 would be a high-powered rifle since it fires the 7.62/.308 cartridge.

The advantage of chambering a rifle with an intermediate cartridge is the lower recoil, and therefore better controllability when firing.  The standard C8 magazine holds 30 rounds, whereas a police shotgun might hold five in its tubular magazine, and that, combined with full automatic fire, is another advantage of the C8 over a 12 gauge shotgun.

The 12 gauge pump-action shotgun presently carried in police cars is comparable in power to the “high-powered” rifle cartridges, with all the blast the recoil.  It is much shorter, however, in effective range than any of the rifle cartridges, high or intermediate powered.

It is odd that the police would consistently refer to the C8 as “high-powered”.  The “short-barrelled” part is certainly true, and being short barrelled it tends to reduce the power of the bullet coming out of the business end of the rifle as well as the longer-range accuracy of the weapon (i.e. at 100 m or more distance.  A police shotgun would not reach out that far.)

In sum, it is deceptive to refer to the C8 as a “high-powered” rifle, especially in comparison to a 12 gauge shotgun.  In terms of size, the C8 is roughly the same as a Model 870 pump-action shotgun.

I am not opposed to Hamilton’s police being issued C8s.  But what I have to wonder is what game is being played here by mischaracterizing the C8 as being “high-powered?”  The police have enough firearms experts to know everything I told you above – so why were they being deliberately inaccurate to you?  Is it because the AR-15 is so popular among gun-owners, and the police officials wanted to plant seeds in the mind of the wider public?  And if the police really didn’t know – then that itself is another problem.

The alarm bells of gun owners go off when authorities deliberately mischaracterize firearms to make them seem more sinister.  And that is what was being done in your column.

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Her reply was to thank me for my feed-back, and to suggest I write a letter to the editor.

Bill 62 - Quebec's marker for French distinctiveness

Vincent J. Curtis

20 Oct 2017

Many are the editorials and editorials posing as news articles that condemn Quebec's Bill 62 as anti-Muslim because it bans facial coverings in public places.  The hypocrisy is gag-inducing.

In the first place, facial coverings such as the niqab and burka are cultural in origin, not a component of the religion of Islam.  All Islam calls for is modesty in feminine dress.  So, the claim that a ban on facial coverings is anti-Muslim is plain false, and a product of ignorance - including ignorance by converts to Islam.

Second, French Quebec used to rank high on the list of the aggrieved, and English Canada accepted Bill 101, the Charter of the French language in Quebec, on the grounds that the French fact in Quebec needed such protection.  Now, in a conflict between two aggrieved parties, Islam seems to prevail in the progressive mind-set against any other competitor for some reason, including over feminism.

The intellectual contradictions of the progressive mindset are played upon below, in which I accuse a newspaper editor of the progressive crimes of insensitivity and intersectionality - to say nothing of the obviousness and tediousness of the argument offered in the editorial.  The progressively aggrieved are compared, and in this case, the palm of victory is awarded to Quebec with characteristically progressive arguments.

RE:  Call Bill 62 what it is – bigotry

Oh, the insensitivity!  Oh, the intersectionality!  Oh, the tediousness!

The editorial in question is an example of Anglo-Saxon insensitivity and anti-French bigotry.  The Spectator editors seem not to know that Quebec regards itself as a distinct society – distinct, that is, from the rest of English Canada and English North America.  Quebec regards itself as the heart and soul of the French Fact in Canada.

As such, Quebec looks to Paris for guidance in cultural matters, France being the center of the French Fact in the world.  France has a policy it calls “laiceté”, meaning that public life in France is to be stripped of overt religiousness, a policy the product of the French revolution.  Two years ago, France adopted a policy concerning facial coverings similar to that embodied in Bill 62, and Quebec is simply following Paris’s cultural lead in that respect.

The progressive outlook from which the Spectator launched its condemnation of Bill 62 for alleged anti-Muslim bias is peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon mentality, a mentality Quebec understands quite well and rejects as culturally foreign.

Before the Spectator condemns Quebec for anti-Muslim bias, it needs to check its Anglo-Saxon intersectionality at the door.  The editorial was tedious, obvious, and entirely unimaginative.

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We’re Spending $60-Billion FOR WHAT???

Vincent J. Curtis

14 Sept 2017

As reported by David Pugliese in Esprit de Corps Volume 24, Issue 7, the Trudeau Liberal government is committed to spending up to $60-Billion to rebuild Canada’s surface combatant fleet.  This is up from the original $26-Billion the Harper Conservative government believed was necessary for the project.

Minister of National Defense Harjit Sajjan confirmed that the existing surface combatant fleet of frigates and destroyers will be replaced by “Fifteen [frigates].  Not ‘up to’ 15 and not 12.  And definitely not six, which is the number the previous government’s plan would have paid for, as the Parliamentary Budge Officer reported.”

At $4-billion each, these Canadian frigates must the most expensive lightweight punchers in human history.  Let’s compare.  What could $60-Billion buy in terms of combat ships today?

For $60-billion, Canada could buy six of the 100,000 ton Nimitz- class aircraft carriers.  The United States only has ten of them, and these are the backbone of the US Navy’s world-wide carrier fleet.

For $60-Billion Canada could buy thirty of the 9,000 ton Aleigh Burke- class guided missile destroyers.  The United States presently has sixty-four of these on active service.  When in April Prime Minister Trudeau urged the world community to seek justice in the chemical attack that Bashir al-Assad made against his own citizens, President Donald Trump dispatched two of these to deal with issue.  If the RCN were similarly equipped, Mr. Trudeau would not have to wave his arms fecklessly and call for others to act in fulfillment of his virtue signalling.  He could order it done himself.

For $60-billion, Canada could buy twelve of the brand new 78,000 ton Queen Elizabeth – class aircraft carriers from the UK, which only plans to acquire two.

You get the idea.  For $60-billion spent on naval construction, Canada could change the balance of naval power in the world.

But we won’t.  For $60-billion Canada is going to acquire fifteen 5,000 ton frigates of limited combat power, speed, and range.  These surface combatant ships are aptly designed to re-fight the Battle of the Atlantic, which pitted German U-boats against corvettes.  Except the Germans are on our side now, and the only conceivable submarine fleet that would oppose Canada is the Russian one.

Russia is not well situated to interdict sea traffic across the North Atlantic, and, besides, the United States submarine fleet have that problem addressed.

What our construction program lacks is actual combat power.  There is no doubt that frigates are necessary.  But in today’s world, and for the next twenty to thirty years out, naval power is lacking in a hard-skinned fighting ship.  For a middle power like Canada, this fighting ship takes the form of a 20,000 to 25,000 ton nuclear-powered battlecruiser carrying six – twelve inch guns with plenty of deck space for Tomahawk cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, and air-defense and missile-defense guns.  Nuclear power gives the ship unlimited range and enables a speed of over thirty knots.  A battlecruiser is preferred because it is less technically sophisticated to operate than a carrier.

One of these would cost much less than a Nimitz- class aircraft carrier, also nuclear powered.  And one or two is all Canada would require.

Much as I love our east coast ship builders, it is plainly cheaper for Canada to acquire its combatant ships abroad.  The reason for placing orders for warships in Canadian shipyards is for domestic economic benefits, but in this case we need to look at a larger picture.

Canada is re-negotiating NAFTA with the Trump administration, and can expect a hard bargainer across the table.  Sixty billion dollars represents a huge bargaining chip on the Canadian side.  In exchange for American concessions on the trade deal, Canada could place orders with American shipyards for Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyers – a proven modern design with all the costs of development fully depreciated.  We get a lot more combat power for our defense money, Canadian exporters retain or get freer access to U.S. markets, our marketing boards are left alone, and the east coast shipbuilders get put on welfare.

Those are the economics of it.  Our east coast shipbuilders are too pricy for the naval combat power the rest of us have a right to expect.  We might like our neighbourhood grocer, but we think nothing of shopping at Wal-mart for the better prices.  For $60-billion in expenditure, Canadian taxpayer have a right to expect serious naval combat power, and we won’t get it with fifteen frigates.

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A version of this appeared in Esprit de Corps magazine Vol 24, Issue 9.

The article sparked a reply from Irving Ship Building, contending some of my claims.  I would like to include Irving's reply with this post for the sake of completeness, but cannot as the Irving communication: "contains confidential information intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. It may also be privileged or otherwise protected by other legal principles. Any unauthorized disclosure, use, dissemination or copying, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately and delete this e-mail and any attachments from your computer system and records. Thank you." 

Included with the communication was an economic assessment from Price Coopers Waterhouse (commissioned by Irving, I suppose) which purports to show the superior economic benefits of building the frigates in Canada as opposed to purchasing those ships from an overseas supplier.  I read the PwC report and remain unimpressed.  Perhaps I'll write a refutation some time.

John A. Macdonald's Legacy

Vincent J. Curtis

7 October 2017

RE: The ‘Canada First’ legacy of John A. Macdonald  (Hamilton Spectator 7 Oct 2017)

While one can appreciate Mr. Brouwer’s effort to defend the legacy of John A. Macdonald, he needs to do so with actual facts and proper terms.

Macdonald’s National Policy was formulated in 1876, and so the episode on which his story hung – Macdonald’s encounter with a Hamilton coffin maker cannot be true.  Macdonald won the election of 1878 on his platform, and by 1879, the National Policy was already in force, having been enacted in the budget of March 14, 1879.  The “I will see what can be done to help you” quote could be true – because the policy of high tariffs on manufactured goods was by then the law of the land.

Referring to the United States, then or now, as an imperialist state or ‘proto-imperialist’ is pejorative at best, and certainly false.  Imperial has an actual meaning, and the U.S. has never met the definition.  Canada, on the other hand, was a component of the British Empire.

The reciprocity treaty of 1854 expired in 1864 and was not renewed; it wasn’t “cancelled.”

The Hudson’s Bay Company were a willing seller of Rupert’s Land, granted to them by Charles II in 1670.  By 1870, the fate of the Northwest Territories was obvious and they wanted to accommodate themselves to the new facts on the ground as profitably as possible.

The Irish Fenians were not the “alt-right” of their day.  The term “alt-right” was unknown until last year for heaven’s sakes.  The Fenians were Irishmen who sought an Ireland free of British rule.  Fenianism is not classifiable as right or left.

The Know-Nothing party was an American Nativist party, anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic in policy.  The party dissolved in 1860, before the ‘rogue nation to the north’ even formed.  It is highly unlikely that Know-Nothings would have wanted to absorb Canada into the United States any more than they wanted to absorb Mexico into the U.S., which could have been done in 1849 -  the beginning of the Know- Nothing movement.

Canada was left alone by America because they saw us as an extension of Great Britain, then a great world power whose navy could destroy American trade on the high seas.

The Liberal Party of Canada has consistently been for free trade.  Wilfred Laurier won the election 1896 by promising to continue the National Policy, and lost the election of 1911 when he ran for free trade.  National Policy was slowly dismantled during the long rule of the Liberal Party of the 20^th century.

As a leading Father of Confederation, John A. Macdonald had the vision to create a new self-governing country in the legal mould of Britain out of the disparate colonies of British North America.  With a little money and a great practical mind, he navigated his vision around republicanism, Americanism, bankruptcy, and disaster until his death in 1891.  By then, a vision of Canada had taken root and has lasted to the present day through wars, rebellions, economic depression, and crises of national unity.

Macdonald is deserving of his statue in Hamilton, even if Canadian standards of honour are more modest than those of our neighbour to the south.  To say that Macdonald deserves to be dishonoured on account of the policy of schooling of Aboriginals developed under his watch is to provide an example of blinkered small-mindedness worthy of utter contempt.  Never mind the statue, Canada herself is Macdonald’s legacy.

That is the defense of Macdonald’s statue in Hamilton.

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An abbreviated version of this was published in the Hamilton Spectator on 16 Oct 2017.