Have You Ever Been To Canada? It's A Nice Country

COVID-palooza by Chip Proser

Yesterday I referenced Señor Trumpanzee farting out, during his daily barrage of misinformation and manipulative lies, that "Our death totals, our numbers, per million people, are really very, very strong. We’re very proud of the job we’ve done." As I pointed out the U.S. death totals per million are anything but "really very, very strong." They're really very, very mediocre and lag badly behind many other countries, including the most American-like of countries, Canada.

Yesterday, U.S. deaths came in at 197 per million. Canada's was a far more reasonable 90 per million. Yesterday, Canada reported 54,784 total cases and 3,387 deaths. Our neighbors to the north have 1,452 cases per million. That isn't great but the states that have been most steepening the curve are in worse shape than Canada's 1,452 cases per million:

• South Dakota- 2,921 per million
• Indiana- 2,807 per million
• Georgia- 2,656 per million
• Mississippi- 2,413 per million
• Nebraska- 2,248 per million
• Tennessee- 1,788 per million
• Florida- 1,686 per million
• Utah- 1,585 per million
• North Dakota- 1,472 per million

These are also states with Trumpist governors opening up too rapidly and too early and likely to cause big jumps in reinfection rates, not just in their own states, but subsequently everywhere. And big reinfection rates always mean that a month later there are jumps in the death rates too. Congratulations, Kristi Noem, Brian Kemp and Ron DeSantis... you're killing off your state's citizens. And-- no coincidence-- these are also states that would rather take advise from the NRA than from public health experts.

While Trump was encouraging the right-wing vigilante terrorists bringing assault weapons to rallies protesting social distancing rules, Trudeau announced that his government is banning 1,500 types of military grade assault weapons.

Starting today, licensed gun owners will no longer be allowed to sell, transport, import or use these sorts of weapons in this country.

"As of today, the market for assault weapons in Canada is closed," Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said. "Enough is enough. Banning these firearms will save Canadian lives."

Trudeau said there will be a two-year amnesty period to allow people who already own these firearms to comply with the ban. Trudeau promised to pass legislation in the coming months to provide "fair compensation" to people who own these firearms.

..."These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time," Trudeau said. "There is no use and no place for such weapons in Canada."

Trump, on the other hand... back to describing terrorists as "very good people."

Rev. John Pavlovitz devoted his blog yesterday to discussing The White Privilege to Terrorize, something many people thought of when they saw Trump encouraging them (again). "As a white man watching the Michigan protests of Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders," he wrote, all I could think was: 

• Black people don’t get to do this.
• Muslims don’t get to do this.
• Latinos don’t get to do this.
• People who don’t look like this don’t get to do this.

Pavlovitz noted that non-whites "don’t get to swarm American capitol buildings in tactical gear with high-powered weapons, screaming in close proximity to police officers. They don’t get to dress up like Call of Duty cosplayers and attempt to physically intimidate politicians into bending to their wills. They don’t get to get to stop traffic in city streets decked out like they work at the Death Star and brazenly wield semi-automatic rifles. They don’t get to terrorize decent people and walk away. Only white people get to do this. This violence is a singular privilege afforded to caucasian men in America."

12 year old black boys playing with a toy gun in a park are shot down by the police who are then exonerated.

Black people don’t get to to wear menacing masks or flash handguns on courthouse steps or accost strangers looking like dollar store stormtroopers, in an attempt to frighten people.

They frighten jittery white people by simply existing in their blackness.
They frighten them by lingering in coffee shops.
They frighten them by eating lunch in their cars.
They frighten them by standing in front of their own homes.

...It’s no coincidence that in the middle of the fight to oppose stay-at-home protections by Blue governors choosing humanity over commerce, Trump tweeted out seeming non sequitur invocations to LIBERATE several cities and warned of second amendment encroachment. Though on their surface the subjects seemed unrelated to stopping the spread of the virus, these tweets were clear dog whistles for his snarling white base to suit up, strap on weapons, and provide the free muscle in his reckless push to reopen American in the throes of a pandemic, knowing they’d never be held accountable.

This is MAGA America in its dawning renaissance of outward racism, showing us what is at stake as we approach another election. We aren’t just choosing a president or party to steward us through the coming years, we’re making a statement on what we will and will not tolerate as a people.

What we witnessed in Michigan was an act of terrorism, by the very definition of the word. We have seen many such acts this week, and if November allows this malevolence another four years, they will seem tame. The self-appointed soldiers in the army of the lord will grow more brazen and become more violent in their holy war to make America whiter-- so decent white people need to resist them in the streets, on social media, and at the polls.

I fully suspect people of color will oppose this presidency in large numbers, because they see the disparity.

What I hope and pray, is that more white people, especially those who claim to be Christian, will also stand to reject the supremacy and racism that yields such willful homegrown terrorism; that we will use the unearned currency of our privilege to declare this violence un-American and inhuman and unacceptable.

White terrorists can no longer have a friend in the White House-- not if we really want to make America great.

Write your own caption without mentioning man-boobs

"Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery"-- Or Did Wilde Get That Wrong?

Luke Savage has a very good question for Jacobin readers this week: Who Will Be the American Justin Trudeau? "With a restless Democratic base leaning left," he wrote, "party centrists are looking for their Justin Trudeau-- a candidate who will seem progressive while preserving the status quo." I offered 4 pretty obvious possibilities in a twitter poll yesterday:

The question wasn't who's as good looking as Trudeau, but it was always a neck and neck race between Beto and Kamala anyway. A friend of mine was making fun of Trevor Noah Monday for referring to Julian Castro as "a progressive candidate." I almost defended Noah, explaining to my friend that although Castro's record shows him to be nothing more than a garden variety establishment Democrat, he is running as a progressive. All those popular Bernie ideas and Elizabeth Warren ideas just floating around out there, makes it much easier for clueless political hacks to redo themselves as "progressive," progressive-lite or progressivish.

Luke Savage is no fan of Prime Minister Trudeau's. Trudeau may look dreamy to some and especially awesome in contrast to the lump of stinking crap sitting in the Oval Office but... he and his Liberal Party made a deliberate decision before the 2015 Canadian elections to "embrace left-leaning rhetoric around taxes, spending, the economy, and social policy. Unlike other recent efforts from the political center (notably Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated 2016 presidential run), Trudeau made a professed desire to tax the rich and fight inequality a central theme of his campaign, and reaped the electoral rewards. When examined in detail the Liberal program was in fact fairly modest and has only grown tamer in government. Yet by embracing the language of redistribution and activist government, albeit in vague and qualified terms, Trudeau successfully convinced large numbers of Canadians that they were voting for a progressive, left-wing agenda-- a narrative that came to be channeled in media coverage both during and after the election."

Savage seems certain "some centrist Democrats will very likely look to Trudeau’s charade as a model to be emulated." It's too late for Biden, Bloomberg, McAuliffe, Frackenlooper or that Starbucks guy to pretend to be anything but right-of-center, but just take a look at the ultimate political opportunist, Kirsten Gillibrand if you want to see someone turn on a dime.

The Liberal campaign of 2015, for all the hype it generated, was anything but radical in tone. Nevertheless, a carefully crafted platform incorporating language about taxing the rich, spending more on public goods, and rejecting austerity gave many ordinary Canadians a different impression while simultaneously reassuring elites they had nothing to fear.

For one thing, it promised to raise taxes on “the wealthiest 1% while cutting them for the middle class” and closing loopholes benefiting the rich. In the realm of social policy, Trudeau championed the Canada Child Benefit-- a means-tested cash transfer-- as a way to help low-income families. The platform’s biggest theme was arguably deficit-financed investment in “social infrastructure,” supposedly signalling a break from prevailing economic orthodoxy and (for some commentators) a bold embrace of activist government.

Parts of the plan were mostly illusion from the get-go. While the language of the “1 percent” vaguely hinted at Occupy-inflected class rhetoric, the corresponding policy actually amounted to a net reduction in income taxes. Though the government did create a new bracket for incomes over $200,000 a year at a marginal rate of 33 percent, its “middle-class tax cut” also lowered taxes on incomes between $45,282 and $90,563, a move whose biggest beneficiaries were ultimately those in the top 10 percent of incomes-- hardly the “middle class” as most people understand it, and certainly not the poor. Tax loopholes, such as one that allows compensation earned through stock options to be taxed at half the regular rate (mainly used by lushly paid corporate executives) have remained open despite the Liberal commitment to close them. Late last year, supposedly in response to Trump administration policy, the government also unveiled billions in corporate tax cuts-- hardly the behavior of a left-populist administration.

With childcare widely inaccessible and cripplingly expensive across the country, the Canada Child Benefit was a particularly resonant campaign promise. While it is indeed a cash transfer to low-income families and an improvement on the Conservative-era benefit it replaced, Trudeau advanced the policy in explicit opposition to the universal public model being championed by his rivals in the NDP, declaring, “When it comes to child benefits, fair doesn’t mean giving everyone the same thing, it means giving people what they need.” While this no doubt sounded intuitively correct to some voters, it in effect meant leaving Canada’s inefficient, pricey, and market-driven childcare model intact while offering subsidies to some families worth a maximum of a few thousand dollars a year (childcare in Canadian cities outside Quebec can easily cost $1,000 a month or more).

Trudeau’s supposed embrace of deficits and Keynesian economics employed a similar sleight of hand. While the government is indeed running deficits and pursuing an infrastructure program, it has channeled billions into an infrastructure bank designed to attract private capital and even hinted at the mass privatization of public assets. The once-promised “social infrastructure” and stimulus spending that enabled Trudeau to rhetorically repudiate austerity has therefore taken a back seat to an effectively neoliberal model of public spending.

What was innovative about this strategy was the way it channeled widespread concern about poverty, inequality, and an economy rigged towards the rich while ultimately offering little to meaningfully address those problems. For some, it appeared to reflect the same priorities as the NDP platform-- which included among other things the creation of national childcare and prescription-drug benefit programs-- allowing the Liberals to absorb and neutralize competition to their left. (The NDP, for what it’s worth, needlessly compromised its own program and created space for the Liberals by promising balanced budgets).

After more than three years in government, Trudeau’s Liberals have done little if anything to alter the economic fundamentals of the country or significantly improve material conditions for most of its people. Nevertheless, the prime minister has made a regular habit of issuing pronouncements about inequality at international conferences that seem deliberately choreographed to maintain his 2015 brand. In a similar vein, his government has also introduced rather misleadingly titled “national strategies” for both poverty and housing that are far less grand in scope than their labeling suggests (essentially amounting to a series of small subsidies and new metrics).

A combination of superficial gestures, bad-faith promises, skillful branding, and political sleights of hand, Trudeau’s inequality scam has proven a resounding success.

How might an opportunistic Democratic politician looking to win over the base while reassuring corporate America launch their own phony war on inequality in the 2020 primaries and beyond? Justin Trudeau’s strategy offers us some clues.

Instead of simply ignoring or rendering poverty, inequality, and public goods secondary to his brand, Trudeau has made them central, even faintly invoking the language of class to that end. But despite going to great lengths to show how much he recognizes people’s problems he has always remained assiduously vague about how he intends to solve them and adopted a decidedly nonconfrontational posture towards corporate Canada and other powerful interests in the process. While appearing to embrace core progressive concerns, particularly around taxes and social policy, he has quietly doubled down on all-too-familiar neoliberal shibboleths and policy thinking-- rejecting universality and leveraging a phony language of activist government.

With potentially transformative proposals such as a Green New Deal and Medicare for All on the table in the US ahead of the 2020 presidential election, and an anxious donor class tugging in the opposite direction, it’s all too easy to imagine centrist Democrats looking to Trudeau’s example. If the American left, broadly defined, wants to avoid a repeat of Canada’s experience it should be vigilant about the prospect of phony wars on inequality-- and settle for nothing less than the real thing.

D.O.A.'s Joey Shithead Elected To The Burnaby City Council

Back at the tail end of the '70s, when I was playing punk rock indie records on the radio, one of my favorite bands was a hard core punk trio from the Vancouver area, D.O.A. They came down to play in San Francisco so frequently, that people came to regard them as a local band. I had them on my radio show as often as an local band, maybe more for their left-wing politics than for their music per se. And also because of what nice guys they were. They weren't one of those bands with a chip on its collective shoulder. They may have looked and sounded angry and even dangerous onstage, but a nicer bunch of guys you were never gonna meet, especially not in the punk rock confines around the Mabuhay.

And their leader singer/guitarist, Joey Shithead, was always so real and smooth at the same time, a natural born politician who everybody liked a lot. Believe me, not every band that tried to crash the San Francisco punk scene was welcomed so thoroughly as D.O.A. was. And a lot of that was due to Joey Shithead's personality and his political adeptness.

So I can't say I was completely shocked this week when an old friend of mine told me Joey had just been elected to the Burnaby city council, breaking the power monopoly of the Burnaby Citizens Association. The BCA elected seven members of its slate-- the seven incumbents, but Joey Shithead Keithley, running on the Green Party slate narrowly beat BCA candidate Baljinder K. Narang for the 8th seat on the 8-man board. Burnaby is the 3rd largest city in British Columbia with a population of around 233,000 and a reputation of being Canada's best-run city.

Keithley won’t be the only new face at city hall.

Independent Mike Hurley defeated longtime mayor Derek Corrigan of the Burnaby Citizens Association in a race that will no doubt send shock waves across the region.

Keithley said the issue of demovictions is the biggest issue facing the city.

“We have to put a stop to that right away… Housing should be a right, not a privilege,” he said.

Did Señor Trumpanzee Have Another Bad Week?

Let's not go over the book and the Op-Ed again. We've heard enough about that, right? And no need to discuss Obama's speech again either, the two that most definitely did not cause Señor T to fall asleep. He'll probably be up all night worrying about the one Obama gave in Orange County today. Instead there are two other things that would have made for a bad week for two normal presidents.

First, his ill-advised trade wars have already caused trade to slow down. On Friday morning, David Fickling wrote that with Trump "expected to start implementing the next round of tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods within hours, it’s tempting to think the global economy is riding out the turmoil. Tempting, but mistaken. Look closely: The slowdown has begun." The momentum of global commerce has crossed over into negative territory. But it isn't commodities. "The weakness is coming not from materials but from manufactured goods, as global supply chains seize up."

That’s consistent with the picture emerging on the ground. U.S. manufacturers “reported higher prices and supply disruptions that they attributed to the new trade policies,” according to the Federal Reserve’s July Beige Book, in addition to “higher input prices and shrinking margins.” The next edition, due out next week, is likely to show further impact, judging by the warnings from business leaders on the eve of the current round of levies.

Even that probably understates the extent of the underlying slowdown. In the U.S., port traffic has been running at record levels in recent months, suggesting the effect of tax cuts and a favorable monetary policy are more than making up for any trade jitters. However, a chunk of the movements probably relate to businesses stocking up early in order to beat the tariffs, according to the National Retail Federation, an industry group.

Previous trade slumps have often coincided with recessions. Will this one? I guarantee you one person who has no idea is the one running around the White House trying to discover who ratted him out to the failing NY Times.

Meanwhile, the imbecile was threatening to cause the "ruination" of Canada if he doesn't get his way. "Canada," he lied to a press gaggle on Air Force One as he was flying to North Dakota, "has been ripping us off for a long time. Now, they’ve got to treat us fairly. I don’t want to do anything bad to Canada. I can-- all I have to do is tax their cars, it would be devastating. If I tax cars coming in from Canada, it would be devastating." Later, in North Dakota he brought it up again. "Actually, on some countries, including Canada, a tax on cars would be the ruination of the country. That’s how big it is. It’d be the ruination of the country. Now, they’ve taken advantage of us for many decades. We can’t let this happen anymore. We have a country to run."

The second problem isn't that George Papadopoulos was sentenced to a short prison term yesterday-- Trump, who's been driven insane by all the book and OpEd stuff-- declared the shortness of the sentence was a great day for America. Instead, it's that Manafort is trying to negotiate a plea deal to avoid trial number 2. I doubt Mueller will even consider it unless he turns state's evidence against Putin's puppet and his crooked family-- which I couldn't imagine Manafirt doing.

The negotiations over a potential plea deal have centered on which charges Manafort might admit and the length of the sentence to be recommended by prosecutors working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the person familiar with the matter said. Manafort, 69, already faces as long as 10 years in prison under advisory sentencing guidelines in the Virginia case.

By pleading guilty, Manafort could avoid the risk of a longer prison term if he’s convicted at a second trial, as well as the threat of forfeiting several properties and financial accounts. He could also save the cost of paying lawyers to defend him at trial. Such white-collar criminal cases can cost defendants millions of dollars.

The talks may break down without a deal, but if they succeed, they could prompt Mueller to request a reduced sentence in both the Washington and Virginia cases. It’s not clear whether Manafort might cooperate in Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to the person. Trump, who said he was “very sad” after Manafort’s conviction, could still pardon him.

...“I think there’s a 70 percent chance that you’re going to see a guilty plea,” said Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor who observed the first Manafort trial. “What’s the point of a second trial? There’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll be convicted on some charges. He may be acquitted of obstruction, but the money laundering charge is a slam dunk.”

Manafort has been in custody since June 15, when U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson revoked his bail after prosecutors said he attempted to tamper with witnesses in the Washington case.

“The power of detention is enormous,” Rossi said. “Being detained is an incredible disadvantage to a defendant. You can’t prepare for a trial as well as you could.”

Manafort may conclude that he can’t afford the emotional and financial cost of a second trial, he said. “He may say, ‘I’m going plead and cooperate. I don’t have the money. I’m exhausted and don’t have the emotional energy to go through this. My family and close friends have been through a big storm, and I don’t want to put them through that again.’ Defendants get worn down,” Rossi said.

...Former federal prosecutor Patrick Cotter said defendants often have a hard time grasping that they’re running out of legal options.

“Guys who’ve gotten away with a lot of stuff before they get to prison” often show a lot of bravado, he said. “On the day of conviction they still believe there will be one more inning. It takes awhile before they realize there are no more innings.”

Trump's Personal Jealousy Of Justin Trudeau In The Real World

Trump is a bloated, ugly, hated, unhealthy and very stupid man. Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, is the opposite. Trump burns with jealous rage ever since his Ivanka had the hots for Trudeau when he visited the White House last year. That's all pretty sick. Sicker yet is that Trump allows his neurosis to dictate a negative turn in American policy towards our closest ally. The DC bureau chief of the Toronto Star, Daniel Dale, broke a story yesterday about Señor Trumpanzee's insulting remarks about his country. The psychotic blimp didn't deny anything; he just blamed Bloomberg News for leaking something he claimed was "off the record."

Dale wrote yesterday that "High-stakes trade negotiations between Canada and the U.S. were dramatically upended on Friday morning by inflammatory secret remarks from President Donald Trump, after the remarks were obtained by the Toronto Star. In remarks Trump wanted to be 'off the record,' Trump told Bloomberg News reporters on Thursday, according to a source, that he is not making any compromises at all in the talks with Canada-- but that he cannot say this publicly because 'it’s going to be so insulting they’re not going to be able to make a deal... Here’s the problem. If I say no-- the answer’s no. If I say no, then you’re going to put that, and it’s going to be so insulting they’re not going to be able to make a deal... I can’t kill these people,' he said of the Canadian government."

Señor T, a repulsive bully who is probably the most hated man on earth, which he revels in, also told Bloomberg News "that the possible deal with Canada would be 'totally on our terms.' He suggested he was scaring the Canadians into submission by repeatedly threatening to impose tariffs." The Canadian team trying to make a deal saw Trump's comments "as evidence for their previous suspicions that Trump’s team had not been bargaining in good faith [and] raised them at the beginning of a meeting with their U.S. counterparts on Friday morning... Earlier on Friday morning, before becoming aware of the remarks, a Canadian official told The Star the U.S. side was not offering 'any movement' on the issues most important to Canada."

Part of the U.S. negotiating team is Trump's effeminate son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was also reportedly miffed that his wife had flirted with Trudeau.

On the record, Trump told Bloomberg that a deal was “close,” that it could happen by Friday but might take longer, and that Canada ultimately has “no choice” but to make a deal. Bloomberg quoted these remarks.

But then he said, “Off the record: totally on our terms. Totally.”

“Again off the record, they came knocking on our doors last night. ‘Let’s make a deal. Please,’” he said.

Bloomberg’s Micklethwait declined to comment.

“‘Off the record’ means ‘off the record’-- and we should respect that,” Micklethwait said in an email.

Trump’s remarks came at a particularly delicate time in the negotiations. Negotiators have been trying for three days to meet a Trump-imposed Friday deadline for making a deal.

The deadline is not firm. Even if the U.S. formally notifies Congress on Friday that it has made a preliminary deal with Mexico alone, as Trump officials have threatened to do, Canada can almost certainly be added to the arrangement at any time in the next month.

Trump, of course, is known for both dishonesty and for bragging about his own greatness, and he regularly makes dubious claims about how he is supposedly dominating the begging people on the other side of the bargaining table from him. When he claimed to have made no compromises, it is distinctly possible he was making a false claim to impress the Bloomberg journalists.

Regardless of their truthfulness, the president’s comments are significant for more than one reason.

As Trump said, his claim that he has not compromised at all could make it harder for Trudeau to sell the deal to Canadians as a win for both countries. But the disclosure of the claim could also make it harder for Trump to convince Americans that Canada is at fault for any impasse.

So the talks broke off for the weekend and Trump is blustering around how he's going to go ahead and sign the deal with Mexico which Canada can either sign or not sign in the future. Trump's in a hurry to get this done before Mexico's new socialist government is seated. Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, said she'll be back for more negotiating with Trump's team next Wednesday. It must be so tiresome to have to deal with these manipulative, selfish assholes.

Still trying to bust Trudeau's balls Saturday morning-- backing him into an untenable corner. Trump was especially distraught because he was barred from the top social event of the season, McCain's funeral. Every loathsome politician in America was there, except Trumpanzee and Palin-- even Trump's own daughter and vice president, the Christian supremicist, as well as war criminal Henry Kissinger and the last two legitimate presidents-- and tons of senators, from McConnell to Lindsey Graham, no one boycotting in solidarity with Trump's embarrassment and shame.

Fergus Laing is a beast of a man
He stitches up and fleeces
He wants to manicure the world
And sell it off in pieces
He likes to build his towers high
He blocks the sun out of the sky
In the penthouse the champagne’s dry
And slightly gassy

Fergus Laing he works so hard
A'busy as a bee is
Fergus Laing has 17 friends
All as dull as he is
A'17 friends, a'17 wives
All the perfect shape and size
They wag their tails and bat their eyes
Just like Lassie

Fergus Laing he builds and builds
Yet small is his erection
Fergus Laing has a fine head of hair
When the wind’s in the right direction
The wind's in the right direction

Fergus Laing and his 17 friends
They live inside a bubble
There they withdraw and shut the door
At any sign of trouble
Should the peasants wail and vent
And ask him where the money went
He’ll simply say, it’s all been spent
On being classy

Trump Is So Uninformed And Stupid, He Should Just Keep His Mouth Shut

Ever smuggle phamaceuticals into the U.S. from Canada? They cost much less up there so it's a pretty common practice. Señor Trumpanzee, presumably with the help of the White House's top in-house Nazi, Stephen Miller, insists Canadian are smuggling scuffed up shoes from the U.S. into Canada. Señor T, wrote Daniel Dale for the Toronto Star, "has called Canada 'brutal,' accused Canada’s prime minister of being 'weak,' and taken aim at Canada’s supply management system for dairy. Now he is calling Canadians shoe smugglers."

In the latest salvo in the president’s multi-front attack on Canadian trade practices, Trump told a story Tuesday about Canadians who cross the U.S. border to buy shoes. The tale left trade experts and apparel industry officials scratching their heads.

Trump launched into it while delivering a rambling speech, focused on illegal immigration, to the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

“There was a story two days ago in a major newspaper talking about people living in Canada coming to the United States and smuggling things back into Canada because the tariffs are so massive. The tariffs to get common items back into Canada are so high that they have to smuggle ‘em in,” Trump said, apparently referring to an essay in the New York Post by Canadian journalist Isabel Vincent. “They buy shoes, then they wear them. They scuff ’em up. They make them sound old or look old. No, we’re treated horribly.”

There was a grain of truth to the story. Crossing the border to shop in the U.S. and then sneaking an item or two past customs on the way back is a time-honoured Canadian pastime. On Twitter, several Canadians immediately confessed to making furtive attempts to make their new shoes look well-worn.

But there is no indication that any of this has anything to do with tariffs. And Trump’s claim that this shop-and-hide practice results in the U.S. being mistreated makes no sense at all, trade and apparel experts said.

The Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, the U.S. industry’s lobby group, said in a statement: “The president seems misinformed about footwear trade.”

"On behalf of the American footwear industry, we welcome anyone from anywhere to come and purchase shoes in America. It helps both our brands and retailers grow. Period,” the group said. “We don’t care where they wear them, and if they get scuffed up all the better so we can sell them more.”

Under NAFTA, there are no Canadian tariffs on shoes manufactured in the U.S. Since more than 95 per cent of shoes sold in the U.S. are made abroad, any Canadian shoppers avoiding Canada’s tariffs upon their return home are actually avoiding tariffs on foreign-made items, mostly made-in-Asia goods.

In other words, Trump was complaining about Canadians spending money at U.S. stores and then refusing to pay the Canadian government for goods made in other countries-- a process that does not victimize the U.S. in any way.

“There doesn’t seem to be an issue. I’m not sure why we’re talking about this. Yet again, we’re being led down this path when there really isn’t anything there,” said Bob Kirke, executive director of the Canadian Apparel Federation. “I feel like I'm going down the rabbit hole here.”

In a tweet to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the U.S. industry group added: “The US Footwear Industry welcomes you and all Canadians to come buy shoes in America! As many as you want-- and scuff them up if you want, we can sell you more!”

Kirke said he doesn’t think “there’s any negotiation or discussion around footwear tariffs or rules of origin in the current NAFTA negotiation. Zero. Zip.” And he said lower shoe prices in the U.S. are a result of the competitiveness of the U.S. retail market, not tariffs.

“Both countries have tariffs on imported footwear,” said Karl Littler, vice-president of public affairs at the Retail Council of Canada. “His critique of Canada he might level at the U.S. system as well.”

Canadians don’t have to pay duties on their first $200 in purchases if they’re in the U.S. for 24 hours. They get an $800 exemption if they’re away 48 hours.

Another cross-border shopping issue has been significant in NAFTA talks: Canada’s $20 threshold, one of the lowest in the world, for duties on shipments mailed from abroad. The U.S. threshold is $800, and the Trump administration has called on Canada to raise its own.

On Tuesday, Trump again floated the idea of making separate deals with Canada and Mexico rather than preserving the North American Free Trade Agreement. He also made some of his usual false claims about the trade balance with Canada, and he again criticized Canada’s dairy tariffs.

“We can no longer be the stupid country. We want to be the smart country. So hopefully we’ll be able to work it out with Canada. We have very good relationships with Canada, we have for a long time, and hopefully that’ll work out, but Canada’s not going to take advantage of the United States any longer. And Mexico’s not going to take advantage of the United States any longer,” he said.

Trump also scoffed at Trudeau’s argument against the steel and aluminum tariffs that Trump imposed on “national security” grounds. Trudeau has invoked the Canadian soldiers who have fought and died with American soldiers. On Tuesday, Trump paraphrased the argument with a hint of mockery.

“By the way, Canada, they like to talk,” Trump said to laughter. “They’re our great neighbour. They fought World War II with us. We appreciate it. They fought World War I with us, and we appreciate it. But we’re protecting each other.”

The Koch brothers' political network in going mano a mano against Trump's trade agenda. They're launching a six figure ad campaign on Monday urging voters to oppose the Trump tariffs and support Mike Lee's free trade legislation which Trump vehemently opposes. The radio and TV ads say "To keep growing, we must keep trading,. Tariffs are not the answer. Tell Washington: Support Freedom. Oppose Tariffs."

The Koch brothers network sent a letter to members of Congress yesterday basically telling them to oppose what Trump is trying to do with his trade policy: "Tariffs are taxes that make Americans poorer. They raise our cost of living and force higher expenses on our businesses. Just consider the working families paying much more for a new washing machine or the locker manufacturer that now must consider outsourcing U.S. jobs overseas. These ads are an important part of our overall campaign, which also includes significant plans for grassroots mobilization and public education." Washing machines are already priced  20% higher for American consumers than they were last month-- thanks entirely to Trump.

Kellyanne's knock-off Louboutins were smuggled in from Regina

Will Trump Allow Sessions To Set The Agenda On Marijuana?

A new poll from CBS News may come as something of a shock to Trump Regime Attorney General Jeff Sessions who is working on amping up the failed and disastrous Republican war on drugs. The poll shows that 61% of Americans think marijuana use should be legal, a 5-point increase from last year and the highest percentage ever recorded by CBS. An overwhelming 88% favor medical marijuana use! But significant numbers of Republican elected officials haven't moved out of their grandparents' perspective and are completely out of sync with where the country is on marijuana use. Even most Republicans (63%) are against Sessions' plans to interfere with marijuana sales in states that have legalized it-- as do 71% of all Americans.

65% of respondents say marijuana is less dangerous than most other drugs and only 23% buy into the ancient GOP claptrap that legalizing marijuana leads to an increase violent crime. Most of the opposition to legalization comes from the elderly, a group still brainwashed by Republican Party pieties going back decades and long disproven.

Earlier today we were talking about the hot special election race in Montana. One metric we used was how Trump beat Hillary in the state 279,240 (56.2%) to 177,709 (35.7%). On that same day, it's worth noting, that a ballot measure making it easier to buy medical marijuana in Montana passed 291,334 (57.9%) to 212,089 (42.1%). Yeah, that's right-- medical marijuana was more popular in Montana than either Trump or Clinton.

One long-time Trump crony and advisor, Roger Stone, violently disagrees with Sessions' approach and is urging Trump to slap Sessions down. Soon after Trump was named president, Stone wrote that one of the most controversial decisions Trump will have to make is whether to continue the federal stand-down by the Justice department "in which DOJ does not enforce federal marijuana laws where they contradict state laws legalizing the legal use and sale of marijuana in the 37 states where it is currently legal in some form. Canceling the order by Obama attorney general Eric Holder to stand down on marijuana would cause a major dislocation in multiple states that are currently budgeting millions in state revenue from the taxation of marijuana and un-employing hundreds of thousands of people currently working in an industry legalized by the states." He urged Trump to "view this as a business man; U.S. government cannot turn back the clock on federal marijuana law enforcement."

Trump has always been pro-medical marijuana. His views on legalization have been, as with most things, muddled and incoherent. In an interview with the Washington Post just before Halloween, 2015 candidate Trump said "In terms of marijuana and legalization, I think that should be a state issue, state-by-state. Marijuana is such a big thing. I think medical should. And then I really believe we should leave it up to the states. And of course, you have Colorado. There’s a question as to how it’s all working out there, you know? That’s not going exactly trouble-free." At CPAC the same year, Trump said legalization "is bad... Medical marijuana is another thing, but I think it’s bad, and I feel strongly about it."

Stone also pointed out that Florida's Amendment 2 (approving medical marijuana) was on the ballot the same day Trump won the state's 29 electoral votes. 4,617,886 Floridians voted for Trump (49%). But 6,518,919 Floridians (71.3%) voted to legalize medical marijuana. That's a very significant disparity. Stone warned that "If, after winning the election, Donald Trump listens to the likes of Chris Christie and Jeff Sessions he risks alienating his base and his newly won supporters in a very tangible way. Both Sessions and Christie come from 'Old World' War on Drugs thinking. Criminalized marijuana has directly lead to the persecution of countless individuals, the vast majority of whom are poor and minorities. That this was the desired result of the designers of the system of criminalization cannot be reasonable doubted."

Stone keeps warning Trump about Sessions' reactionary instincts. Early this month he was at it again:

Jeff Sessions states his position plainly: “Good people don’t smoke marijuana”. This plainly false statement, made in all earnestness, clearly demonstrates how far from the mainstream Sessions is on this topic. Very few Americans would agree with him on this, as evidenced in the wave of legalization that washed over the United States over the past five years. More importantly, sick people use marijuana whose medicinal value is proven yet strangely still denied by the Federal Government.

In many States, the road to medical legalization was hard fought, often with State Constitutional amendments requiring over 60% of the popular vote. The Trump Administration should be mindful that the recreational marijuana measures that passed in several states all passed this same way, with overwhelming popular support. This was clearly the Will of the People. It is not Jeff Sessions place to prosecute his version of morality and President Trump should not allow him to do so.

Just the idea of Sessions re-ignites the marijuana drug war has caused consternation within the fledgling State Legal Marijuana Industry. Investments have floundered, confusion introduced, and little in the way of relief has been forthcoming from the White House. This chaos has opened the door for the Cartels.They were being driven out of shriveling black markets, but are now able to reconstitute their distribution networks, filling the gaps left open by patchwork Federal enforcement and by the industries fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Cracking down on legalized marijuana will starve States out of much needed revenue streams. Colorado is a great success story when looked at from a tax base point of view, and much needed revenue is coming in to fund education and government services. Colorado generated over sixty-six million dollars in tax revenue in 2015 and has increased by double digits’ year over year since. Losing that money will put them deep into the red and cause a burden upon the whole State, as well as throwing thousands of people out of work while destroying a billion-dollar industry.

I urge President Trump to honor his word and keep his promise, irrespective of what his Cabinet members may say.  There are so many other ways that law enforcement can be put to good use rather than to persecute harmless farmers and shopkeepers who are abiding by State law.

Meanwhile, last week the Canadian Government announced new legislation to legalize marijuana, fulfilling a promise Trudeau made while he was campaigning. By the summer of 2018 it should be legal in Canada for people to possess small amounts of pot and there will be guidelines in place for growing and selling marijuana.

Canadian companies are making a play for investment dollars to head north. InMed Pharmaceuticals, a Canadian pre-clinical biotechnology company saw its stock double after the government announced legalization plans.

When compared to the American market, which did in fact grow 34% last year, people are saying that “the industry has matured to a certain point,” indicating that there are still many obstacles on the road to full legalization in the states. Obstacles such as political players like Attorney General Jeff Sessions releasing a memo that his newly created task force will be “evaluating marijuana enforcement policy,” or the fact that the CJS amendment that prohibits the Department of Justice from using any funds to interfere in state medical cannabis programs and bars ongoing federal cases-- expires April 28th. If it is not renewed, patients, caregivers, doctors, and industry workers abiding by their state's medical cannabis law will no longer be protected from federal prosecution.

One big difference is the Canadian cannabis industry offers investors more compelling opportunities because medical cannabis is legal at the federal level. The government’s plan to legalize cannabis has made several licensed medical cannabis producers attractive investment opportunities to institutional investors, hedge funds and investment banks. Additionally, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau supporting full legalization and bankers, lawyers and accountants operating without fear of prosecution making sure medical marijuana producers have access to these much-needed services.

Do You Agree That When Injustice Becomes Law, Resistance Becomes Duty

Deceitful, dissimulating Republicans, led by Paul Ryan ("this is not a religious test and it is not a ban on people of any religion") are insisting that we're not really seeing the Muslim ban that we see unfolding at America's airports, but egomaniac, Rudy "Loose-lips" Giuliani admitted to a Fox News "judge" that Trump had tasked him with coming up with a way to ban Muslims "legally" and that the nationality ploy was the result. In the first day of implementation 4 federal judges struck it down as unconstitutional. The judge in Boston didn't just strike down removal but also detention, finding there are violations of due process and equal protection rights.

On Bannon's order, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement Sunday morning that gave contradictory directions to airport staff. On the one it, it says that Trump's orders will remain in force and on the other hand it stated that the Regime will obey judicial orders. Keep in mind that the Federal District Court in Boston issued a nationwide order barring detention or deportation of refugees, which the Trump Regime is already trampling. There is confusion‎ at airports and small minded, low-level little fascist-types, like the ones who worked in the concentration camps, will take advantage of the situation to behave with seemingly unaccountable brutality. Hitler didn't do it by himself; he needed plenty of enablers and conspirators.

The ACLU celebrated it's legal victories against the Trumpist Regime. Their political director, Faiz Shakir said that "I hope Trump enjoys losing. He’s going to lose so much we’re going to get sick and tired of his losing."

The American Civil Liberties Union announced Saturday evening that a federal court in New York had issued an emergency stay on President Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The court’s decision, which will affect people who have been detained in airports, came after the ACLU and other activist groups filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of two Iraqis who were held at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as a result of the order.

...The class action lawsuit sought an immediate injunction barring the Trump administration from blocking immigrants based on the executive order. It argued that the order violates a 1965 law that banned discrimination in immigration based on national origin. According to a copy of the court decision from Judge Ann Donnelly, it will stop officials  from removing individuals with approved refugee applications, holders of valid visas and people from the affected countries who have been authorized to enter-- pending completion of a hearing on the matter in court. Donnelly also wrote that the lawsuit would have a “strong likelihood of success.”

  “There is imminent danger that, absent the stay of removal, there will be substantial and irreparable injury to refugees, visa holders, and other individuals from nations subject to the January 27, 2017 executive order,” Donnelly said.

Sunday morning, urbanologist Richard Florida, in a tweet storm, outlined how Trump was destroying America's brand-- and economic future-- in his first raucous week in the White House. "Trump's immigration insanity," he explained, "threatens the very core of America's innovative edge-- the ability to attract global talent. Even if the ban is lifted, the system has been shocked and global talent put on alert. The first place the impact will show up is our universities, where global talent fills our engineering and computer science departments. That talent will now choose to go elsewhere. Graduate students first, but senior faculty will begin to relocate as well. This was less of a threat a decade or two ago when global competitors were less established. The US could rest on its 'talent laurels.' But today, there are a handful of countries and dozens of global cities with great universities that can effectively compete for talent. London, Paris, Hong Kong, Toronto, Vancouver, Stockholm Sydney, Melbourne, Dublin, Copenhagen, I could go on ... I expect Canada and Toronto will gain substantially-- the combination of great university, great city, proximity to US market. I also expect that Canada and Toronto will act strategically to capitalize by upping efforts to reinforce tolerance and attract talent and tech. We will see this first in ability of Toronto/ Canada to attract global students, faculty and researchers to universities ... We will see it next in Canadian entrepreneurs and innovators who decide to stay put and not to migrate to the US, adding to local clusters. If Trump's insanity lasts for a year or so, we will see major tech US companies relocate substantial capabilities in Toronto and Vancouver. Trumpism represents the first substantial threat to America's innovative edge in my life ... Trump may believe he is putting America 1st by blocking immigrants and boosting manufacturing but he is undermining its real economic edge."

And, sure enough, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to the orange fascist's favorite medium of communication and let him have it...

Mayor John Tory said Toronto is the most diverse city in the world-- and will not keep newcomers out. "Our citizens come from every part of the globe, and arrived here looking for opportunity, equality and, often, safe harbour. While there is still work to be done, I am proud of our city’s legacy of acceptance and inclusion, and the fact that our economy relies on the hard work and expertise of people of all backgrounds. Our city’s motto is ‘diversity our strength.' We understand that as Canadians we are almost all immigrants, and that no one should be excluded on the basis of their ethnicity or nationality.”

And speaking of our friends up north, the Globe And Mail ran a piece by British journalist Shaista Aziz, branding Trump's executive orders hate crimes. "We’ve just witnessed the first full week of a Donald Trump presidency that has set the tone for what is to come," she wrote. "True to form, Mr. Trump’s arrival in the White House has been every bit as hateful, shameful and unconscionable, as we should’ve expected it to be based on his rhetoric during the election campaign. And this is just the start."

For those politicians and commentators who urged those of us not down with Mr. Trump’s doctrine to suspend reality and “give him the benefit of the doubt” to see what he does when he’s finally president, you now have your answer.

The president of the United States of America, a man endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, has fully mainstreamed Islamophobia and bigotry in his first week in the White House.

Controversial Canada-EU Trade Deal Signed After All

Thanks to CETA, the new Canada-EU "trade" agreement, this statement may no longer be true. It appears cell phones may be seized and searched at the border. But not to worry; so far this presumably applies only to travel between the EU and Canada, for now (source; click to enlarge).

by Gaius Publius

Just a few days after many observers declared that the controversial and much-protested Canada-EU trade deal CETA was dead, the group holding up the process, the parliament of Wallonia, the French-speaking region of multi-lingual and multi-ethnic Belgium, caved to pressure and approved the deal after all. The Wallonia parliament was the last European regional parliament whose approval was needed, and in the end, they gave in. The vote now goes to EU national parliaments, all of which are expected to vote yes.

The Guardian:

The EU and Canada signed a free trade deal on Sunday that was almost derailed last week by objections from French-speaking Belgians, exposing the difficulties of securing agreement from 28 member states as Britain prepares for Brexit talks. ...

[Canadian Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau and top EU officials signed the comprehensive economic and trade agreement, known as Ceta, paving the way for most import duties to be removed early next year. However, the treaty needs the approval of at least 38 national and regional parliaments, including the UK’s, to take full force.

Trudeau was meant to fly to Brussels last Wednesday but he stayed at home when the Wallonia region raised objections that held up agreement until Thursday. Belgium’s regional parliaments endorsed a compromise deal, which addressed concerns about competition for Wallonia’s farmers from Canada, on Friday.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, who stood beside Trudeau at a news conference, said the delay was caused by Belgium’s internal politics and that the deal would be far less contentious when it went before national parliaments.

Among those Wallonian objections:

Wallonia has been nervous about exposing its agricultural sector to competition from Canadian farmers. Magnette had also raised objections to a proposed court system for settling disputes between foreign investors and governments.

One concession he won means that Belgium would be able to go to the European court of justice to determine whether a system of investor-state tribunals were compatible with EU law. The four-page document contains a guarantee that the Belgian government will assess the socio-economic and environmental impact of Ceta.

So the Walloons objected to the effect of competition from Canada on their agricultural market ... and to the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions that bedevil all of these treaties. (ISDS clauses typically give corporations, and only corporations, the right to sue nations — in special trade-only tribunals — for "lost profit" due to, for example, regulation of industries. "Corporate sovereignty" is a fair way to describe the effect of these clauses, since after the trade tribunal rules, there's no appeal of the deicsion, even to a nation's supreme court.)

So note the solution agreed to by the Wallonian parliament — a side deal whereby Belgium (and, apparently, only Belgium) could go to the EU court of justice to make sure that an ISDS ruling under CETA was also compatible with EU law. Does this right apply across the whole of Europe? Not as the Guardian has written the two paragraphs above.

Other objections raised by citizens who protested this treaty strongly include these, from the tech site FreezeNet.ca (emphasis mine):

One of the many secret trade deals floating around is known as CETA. While proponents say these trade agreements are simply about trade, the details suggest that such agreements are much more about pushing laws than actual trade.

Last year, we dug into some of these details and found a number of provisions that adversely affects digital rights. This includes censorship through site blocking, account termination through a three strikes law, unlimited damages for copyright infringement, and provisions that allow border patrols to seize your cell phone at the border.

Again, "corporate sovereignty," with the power of the state to enforce it. Can you imagine having your cell phone seized at the border because agents want to check it for illegally downloaded songs? It's the wave of the protected corporate future.

The pressure from the rest of the European elites on the Walloon parliament must have been immense. The Wallonians went from thinking this: "Politicians in Wallonia had argued that the proposed deal would undermine labor, environment and consumer standards and allow multinationals to crush local companies" ...  to full parliamentary approval in roughly two days.

CETA still needs full approval of the European national parliaments, but as I wrote above, that's expected. Score one for the holders of big money, and the people that money buys them.

GP
  

Oil Companies Dealt Blow After Blow on Plans to Ship Crude by Train

Neil Young singing to the junkies for oil. He's seen the needle and the damage done.

by Gaius Publius

The oil train dominoes are falling. Seems no one touched by oil at the transport end wants any part of it. Pipelines leak, 100- and 200-car trains blow up and burn, and fracking destroys health, lives and ground water.

The key in all of these battles is local control, exercised by the very people in place to be the suffering recipients of all the damage done.

Tony Bizjak writing at the Sacramento Bee (my emphasis):

Oil company dealt another blow on plan to ship crude by train

For the second time in a month, a California community has rejected an oil company’s plans to ship crude oil on long trains through Sacramento and other cities to coastal refineries.

The San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission on Wednesday voted to reject a request by Phillips 66 Co. to build a facility at its Nipomo Mesa refinery that would allow it to receive oil shipments via three trains a week, some of which likely would have traveled through Sacramento and other Northern California communities.

The 3-2 vote to deny Phillips can be appealed by the company to the county Board of Supervisors.

Two weeks ago, the City Council in Benicia unanimously rejected a proposal by Valero Refining Co. that would have allowed it to receive oil from two 50-car trains daily on rail lines through downtown Sacramento, Roseville, West Sacramento, Davis, Dixon and other Northern California communities, as well as through the Feather River Canyon watershed.

Both oil companies were seeking local approval to build spur rail lines and oil transfer stations at their refineries to access oil from North American crude-oil fields, which have seen a boom from new hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – technology.

The requests pitted the oil companies against anti-oil activists, environmentalists and leaders of communities along rail lines, including officials in Sacramento and Davis who said they were concerned about the potential for catastrophic derailment and fires involving the volatile liquid.

If you widen out from California to the whole West Coast, it's win after win after win. Todd Paglia from Stand.earth:

Fighting oil companies and the railroads is no easy thing, but in the last few weeks there was a win, then another, and another and the rout of the previously untouchable fossil fuel sector shows no sign of slowing down. From southern California to northern Washington, communities along the West Coast have dealt four massive blows to the fossil fuel industry over the past two months. Taken separately, each of these announcements represents years of work and tens of thousands of people refusing to put the health and safety of their families, communities and our climate at risk. Collectively, these decisions, which came in rapid succession, represent a shift in the acceptability of expanding fossil fuel infrastructure along our coast. Put simply, people are no longer willing to let the oil industry decide their future, to pollute their communities, to poison their bodies, and to irreparably harm our climate, by building new fossil fuel infrastructure.

The details:

What does this mean for the future of the oil industry along the West Coast? Well, if Shell’s announcement yesterday that it would be withdrawing its request to build a new oil train facility in Anacortes, Washington, is any indication, the writing is on the wall.

To fully understand the tectonic shift that has just occurred in the fight to protect communities and our climate against new fossil fuel infrastructure, it helps to have a sense of what exactly has gone down in the past two months;

• On August 9, the Whatcom County Council dealt a stunning blow to big oil by starting the process to suspend all new fossil fuel proposals for two months, an immediate moratorium that was extended for six months on September 27th. Why is this a big deal? Whatcom County has found itself at the center of a national debate around fossil fuel infrastructure since it could become a gateway for exporting everything from coal to gas to oil to the growing Asia Pacific market. The county council members’ August decision is likely a prelude to a permanent moratorium. The impact of this cannot be overstated – it prevents the growth of the coal industry across the west with no new markets to send it to.

• Oil giant Kinder Morgan is working to push through a pipeline full of controversial tar sands oil to the Port of Vancouver, BC, and if that doesn’t work they may to try deliver the toxic oil to a terminal in Whatcom County on the critical waters of the Salish Sea. Like the recently rejected coal export terminal, an oil export facility would bring the risks of spills and climate damage, with just a few jobs – a very bad deal for anyone but Kinder Morgan. Which is another reason the Whatcom County ordinance is such a big deal.

• On September 20, after a 3½  year fight, a city council in the small Bay Area town of Benicia denied a proposal for a new oil train terminal at the Valero refinery. This stunning decision was, according to Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson, the first time the city has voted against the refinery - a business that currently provides 20-25% of the city’s tax base. The city’s decision was made possible by tenacious organizing by local activists who garnered powerful opposition both in Benicia and in communities along the rail route stretching to Davis, Sacramento, and beyond.

• The Benicia City Council’s decision came on the heels of a ruling by the Surface Transportation Board (STB), a little-known federal agency that primarily handles disputes between railroads. The STB settled a dispute over whether or not, as Big Oil argued, federal regulation of railroads extends so far as to deny local governments land use permitting discretion over oil companies’ proposed oil train projects. Ultimately, the decision affirmed Benicia’s right to deny Valero’s project - a ruling that has already reverberated across the country and buttressed the City of Albany, NY’s challenge to an oil train facility there.

• The following week, on October 5, the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission stunned oil giant Phillips 66 when it denied their permit to build a new oil train facility. The decision came after a nearly three-year review process, with tens of thousands of Californians opposing the project and more than 45 cities, counties, and school boards sending letters urging the planning commission to deny it.

By the way, the magnitude of the disruption is considerable. From Stand.earth's press release about the Anacortes victory: "Combined, the Shell, Benicia and San Luis Obispo decisions represent at least 1,500 tank cars per week of explosive crude oil that were destined to run through our communities, and now will not." These trains, each of them, are almost a mile long.

As Paglia wrote, local resistance shows no sign of stopping. What's important about the West Coast, from California to Canada, is that if the oil giants can't get fracked oil and gas to a Pacific port, they can't get it easily to India and China. In other words, they can't monetize it — which is their whole reason for doing what they do.

Disrupting that industry is a path to winning the climate war, though we have to work even faster at it than we're working. Still, hats off to everyone working this end of the battle. This is what winning looks like!

Disrupting Big Oil

A thought about disrupting Big Oil. Market prices are really low right now, too low in fact to keep many players in business, because supply is so great and oil prices are a very sensitive supply-and-demand pressures. I don't see supply shrinking any time soon, since the race to monetize the last carbon atom is on. And to be frank, the pressure to "keep it in the ground" is an attack on Exxon's stock value, which in large part is based on its monetizable reserves, its "in the ground" assets.

As I write, Exxon's stock price is $88 per share. Could Exxon stay in business if its stock price were suddenly $40? Perhaps not. After all, the mutual funds would shed the stock like water, driving the price even lower. There would be bottom feeders at those low prices, but a new ceiling would have been established. Major stockholders would panic and revolt.

So what would it take to drive Exxon's stock below its ability to stay in business? That's an honest question, and worth exploring.

Now pursue that line of thinking further. I'm a believer in disrupting supply (starving the oil-consuming junkies) as well as, or even instead of, outlawing demand (legislating against using the needle). It just seems more effective. First, any carbon mined will be very likely be burned somewhere in the world. Second, Big Oil has to be driven out of business anyway if we're going to win. The industry has to be bankrupted. So finally, if the disruption is disorderly and chaotic, do we care? Especially if the price of an orderly disruption is so much lost time that we simply lose the whole game we're playing, lose completely what we're trying to preserve?

So again, what would it take to bankrupt Big Oil? In particular, what would it take to drive their stock price below what they can sustain and still stay in business? Transport disruption, as discussed above (and also here), is one method. Other thoughts?

GP