http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/trump-immigration-1.4711365
Rudy Baker
I've always felt a certain distaste for the USA. I like some aspects of culture and technology, but overall, I'm about as interested in the USA as any other country.
Canada has always been at some odds with the USA, but we were relatively speaking a lot weaker back in time. Now we're a bit more robust vis a vis them, and we're able to assert ourselves a bit more rather than merely giving in on every point.
The USA was invading Canada even back in colonial times in the 17th Century.
Ah, if only Canadians read their own history. It's very interesting and has a lot to say about the geopolitical realities of North America!
HMMM
Methinks "deplorables" is an interesting word for you to employ N'esy Pas?
Lets read CBC and check the facts
2015
Canadian Frank Giustra's partnership with Clinton Foundation under scrutiny
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canadian-frank-giustra-s-partnership-with-clinton-foundation-under-scrutiny-1.3049903
2016
Like Trudeau, Hillary Clinton promises gender parity in cabinet
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/clinton-trudeau-cabinet-1.3553840
Clinton Foundation won't accept foreign, corporate donations if Hillary is elected
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/clinton-global-initiative-president-changes-1.3727199
Hundreds of Canadian residents contributing to U.S. candidates
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-trump-clinton-u-s-election-1.3837993
2017
FACT CHECK: Is Canada Donating Taxpayer Money To The Clinton Foundation?
http://checkyourfact.com/2017/07/19/fact-check-is-canada-donating-taxpayer-money-to-the-clinton-foundation/
A recent Toronto Sun editorial criticized the Canadian government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for donating $20 million Canadian dollars to the Clinton Foundation.
Verdict: True
Canadian government filings reveal Canadian tax dollars are indeed financing a foreign health initiative by an organization under the Clinton Foundation.
He was painfully forthright about his personality and plans all through the election process and, sadly, he has been one of the most honest and consistent elected officials before and after the election.
The problem is that Trump gained and sustain enough support to get elected, and continues to sustain his authority by the collective will of the people.
The problem is the United States of America that elected Trump. Look in the mirror America for their you will see the problem.
If you bring an angry dog into your home, who is to blame for the damage?
It may not be all of America.. but Trump would not empower the dangerous demon within if the demon were not there.
This is not America? Oh, yes, it is: Neil Macdonald
Trump has sensed that his voters want ruthlessness, and he's delivering
Comments
Rudy Baker
Robert Paul
@Rudy Baker
I've always felt a certain distaste for the USA. I like some aspects of culture and technology, but overall, I'm about as interested in the USA as any other country.
Canada has always been at some odds with the USA, but we were relatively speaking a lot weaker back in time. Now we're a bit more robust vis a vis them, and we're able to assert ourselves a bit more rather than merely giving in on every point.
The USA was invading Canada even back in colonial times in the 17th Century.
Ah, if only Canadians read their own history. It's very interesting and has a lot to say about the geopolitical realities of North America!
Bill Mooney
@Rene Tremblay Sunshine and warmth in the winter and cheap junk at Walmart. We're generally a pretty shallow bunch easily tempted.
Content disabled.
David Amos
@Robert Paul "I've always felt a certain distaste for the USA."
Methinks I will make my Yankee children aware that they should feel more that a certain distaste towards you Perhaps this comment will do the trick N'esy Pas?
Methinks I will make my Yankee children aware that they should feel more that a certain distaste towards you Perhaps this comment will do the trick N'esy Pas?
David Amos
@Bill Mooney Methinks many Yankees are enjoying the circuses in Congress and Parliament as much as I am N'esy Pas?
David Amos
@Robert Paul "I've always felt a certain distaste for the USA"
Methinks the Yankees feel the same towards the likes of you N'esy Pas?
Methinks the Yankees feel the same towards the likes of you N'esy Pas?
David Amos
@Rudy BakerMethinks the children alone and terrified in his immigration' tent cities will humble Trump bigtime N'esy Pas?
David Amos
@Stephen George Methinks the circus ringmasters "The Donald" and "Trudeau The Younger" are doing a fine job of keeping us entertained N'esy Pas?
Trust that serious political people know I would rather have fun commenting from the peanut gallery in CBC while chucking peanuts to mindless elephants in the GOP much to the chagrin of Jackasses in the Fake Left before I run for public office again in New Brunswick this summer.
Trust that serious political people know I would rather have fun commenting from the peanut gallery in CBC while chucking peanuts to mindless elephants in the GOP much to the chagrin of Jackasses in the Fake Left before I run for public office again in New Brunswick this summer.
Yves Marchand
The thin veneer that separates an open democracy from strong-man fascism is thin indeed. We believed ourselves impervious to the influence of megalomaniacs and those that baldly seek to impose their will through calumny and deceit. Recent events have shown how important it is to remain involve and resist / overturn such negative forces.
Rick Wier
@Yves Marchand You are correct, the veneer of civilized behavior has shattered in the USA. Donald Trump has clearly indicated that torture and abuse of children is now okay in America as long as they are refugees seeking protection. There is no mercy in the US now, abuse of others and division is just a tool to score cheap political points and blame someone else for the economy that is still failing the deplorables that voted for Trump. This is a standard tactic of repressive governments, find some weak outsider who is not able to defend themselves, blame the failings of your government on them, abuse them, and wrap yourself in the flag while doing it. The US, as Mary Gauthier sung, the USA has fallen into a poison pit that it will take forever to get out; charity, Christian or otherwise is not a value in the world of Trump.
David Amos
@Rick Wier "There is no mercy in the US now, abuse of others and division is just a tool to score cheap political points and blame someone else for the economy that is still failing the deplorables that voted for Trump"
HMMM
Methinks "deplorables" is an interesting word for you to employ N'esy Pas?
Lets read CBC and check the facts
2015
Canadian Frank Giustra's partnership with Clinton Foundation under scrutiny
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canadian-frank-giustra-s-partnership-with-clinton-foundation-under-scrutiny-1.3049903
2016
Like Trudeau, Hillary Clinton promises gender parity in cabinet
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/clinton-trudeau-cabinet-1.3553840
Clinton Foundation won't accept foreign, corporate donations if Hillary is elected
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/clinton-global-initiative-president-changes-1.3727199
Hundreds of Canadian residents contributing to U.S. candidates
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-trump-clinton-u-s-election-1.3837993
2017
FACT CHECK: Is Canada Donating Taxpayer Money To The Clinton Foundation?
http://checkyourfact.com/2017/07/19/fact-check-is-canada-donating-taxpayer-money-to-the-clinton-foundation/
A recent Toronto Sun editorial criticized the Canadian government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for donating $20 million Canadian dollars to the Clinton Foundation.
Verdict: True
Canadian government filings reveal Canadian tax dollars are indeed financing a foreign health initiative by an organization under the Clinton Foundation.
Richard Sharp
America is "exceptional" all right. Exceptionally evil.
David Amos
@Richard Sharp Methinks a wiseguy long ago once advised "Judge not lest ye be judged" N'esy Pas?
Stephen George
@David Amos
"Methinks" .....something you never do.
N'est pas?
"Methinks" .....something you never do.
N'est pas?
David Amos
@Stephen George Methinks folks should say the same of you if they bother to read what you are responding to N'esy Pas?
Stephen George
@David Amos
I think you are capable of understanding what I've said. Not much else, n'est pas?
I think you are capable of understanding what I've said. Not much else, n'est pas?
Content disabled.
David Amos
David Amos
@Stephen George Methinks I would be foolish to try to reason with a fool N'esy Pas?
David Amos
@Stephen George Methinks its rather interesting that your buddies in CBC block my replies to your insults N'esy Pas?
Dale Sullivan
It doesn't take long for a country to become a dictatorship.
Clayton Allen
@Dale Sullivan good thing America has elections every 4 years! Or is it only a "dictatorship" when the left loses?
David Amos
@Clayton Allen "Or is it only a "dictatorship" when the left loses?"
YUP
YUP
Danny Tanker
Trump is the worst President America ever elected and he is a first class monster to boot.
Lou Parks
@Danny Tanker
Very far from the truth.
Clearly, you don't know other presidents
Others have carried out illegal aggression of foreign countries,
costing hundreds of thousands of lives.
Trump *has not*
Very far from the truth.
Clearly, you don't know other presidents
Others have carried out illegal aggression of foreign countries,
costing hundreds of thousands of lives.
Trump *has not*
David Amos
@Lou Parks True
Jane Watson
Trump is not the problem. He was painfully forthright about his personality and plans all through the election process and, sadly, he has been one of the most honest and consistent elected officials before and after the election.
The problem is that Trump gained and sustain enough support to get elected, and continues to sustain his authority by the collective will of the people.
The problem is the United States of America that elected Trump. Look in the mirror America for their you will see the problem.
If you bring an angry dog into your home, who is to blame for the damage?
It may not be all of America.. but Trump would not empower the dangerous demon within if the demon were not there.
Content disabled.
David Amos
David Amos
@Robert Paul Methinks the only real Americans are the First Nations folks N'esy Pas?
David Amos
@Robert Paul Methinks that you and CBC are upsetting a lot of Yankees for no reason they will ever understand N'esy Pas?
Dennis Brady
So here is America, Puritan John Winthrop's shining city on a hill, an example to the world and "a model of Christian charity," to cite the title of his sermon aboard the Arbella, as England's first settlers approached New England in 1630.
Centuries later, American presidents would return repeatedly to Winthrop's hilltop-city metaphor, the first invocation of American exceptionalism. JFK. Barack Obama. And Ronald Reagan, adding his own words: "a tall, proud city … teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here."
Go ahead, read that again. Then read today's news headlines.
But it was an ideal, and during most of my lifetime, at least, America inched closer to it. Its biggest cities became increasingly multiracial, then increasingly interracial. It showed the world what rule of law really meant. The nation elected a black president. And in the last century, America pushed successfully for rules-based trade, reasoning that nations with interlaced economies don't make war on one another.
Reagan's vision of free ports humming with commerce, surrounded by walls with doors open to courageous, exhausted new arrivals actually took form.
But it was never real. The changes were always grudging, and, it turns out, easily dismantled by a man never as elegantly articulate as JFK or Reagan or Obama, but who nonetheless better represents the true soul of America.
Along the southern border, families with the will and the heart to flee misery and seek asylum are being torn apart — the parents charged and prosecuted and deported, rather than welcomed through open doors. Their children, alone and terrified, sit numbly in tent cities erected by ICE, Donald Trump's freshly empowered immigration enforcers, who keep visiting do-gooders away, even papering over windows to hide what's going on within.
A woman sent back to Guatemala without her son tearfully wonders if she will ever see him again.
A former Republican first lady compares the detention centres to the Japanese-American internment camps of the Second World War.
A former military general, and former CIA and NSA director, noted that other governments have separated children from parents, tweeting a picture of Auschwitz-Birkenau's railroad spur.
Most of the criticism has invoked morality, or Christian values. But this president is clearly uninterested in either, despite his closeness to evangelical Christian leaders and his own avowal of faith.
He's sensed that his voters, which are really what count, want ruthlessness, and that they can easily be persuaded to see it as patriotic: a notion he eagerly promotes.
Any criticism he treats as just politics, the easiest course of action in a country where even Supreme Court decisions are regarded as partisan.
The stated purpose of his policy is to make it clear to the world that having the "will and the heart" to get to the shining city on the hilltop will leave you in prison and your children at least temporarily orphaned. Trump wants to build an actual wall around the hilltop city, one with no doors, topped with concertina wire. Judging from his successes so far, he likely will.
As for America's race issues, suffice it to say that white America has not had so bold a champion since George Wallace and Strom Thurmond. Take a moment and look at Virginia's new Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, Corey Stewart, backed and praised lavishly by the president.
Which brings us to the hilltop city's free ports, humming with commerce. Trump is single handedly putting an end to that, too, making something else clear to the world: rules-based trade and commerce is for chumps.
To him, America's allies are weak fools – he actually taunts them publicly – who need to understand that what counts is American power, against which they cannot prevail. Either they accept his terms, or he crushes them. Already, he's labelled their exports a threat to America's national security.
His protectionist tariffs are already sending shocks through the interconnected global economy, and have prominent economists disbelievingly calculating the costs.
There's some irony here, of course. The political left has denounced globalization and the lowering of trade barriers for years. Well, they're about to get what they wanted, from a most unlikely hero.
Rationally, you'd expect unimpeded information and serious analysis about the consequences of Trump's rampage through the hilltop city to fuel a backlash so immediate as to stop him in his tracks.
But, as has been demonstrated repeatedly in the year and a half since Trump's victory, facts don't matter anymore, and neither do the journalists and experts who struggle to put them forth.
As journalism professor Jay Rosen has persuasively argued, Trump is clearly winning his war against the media, an institution Trump has described as a great danger to America.
Fact-checking, the essence of journalism, no longer matters much, says Rosen, because it carries no consequence.
Politicians, caught lying, used to at least stop repeating the lie, even if they wouldn't admit having lied. Being a proven liar was just too uncomfortable. No longer. Trump lies easily and overwhelmingly; he couldn't give a toss about fact-checkers, and neither do his supporters. The brazen lie is now of no more consequence than serial philandering or consorting with foreign enemies who want to corrupt elections.
Donald Trump, who loves winning, is winning. He is beating America's allies, he is crushing America's media, he is demonizing and desiccating American law enforcement, and hinting that in the end, he might even use his pardon power to sweep away rule of law. He has in fact already done so.
In her op-ed for The Washington Post, Laura Bush asked for compassion, kindness and morality. This is not America, she argued.
Well, yes it is. Trump is America, and America, it turns out, isn't so exceptional after all.
This column is part of CBC's Opinion section. For more information about this section, please read this editor's blog and our FAQ.
The true nation of "Christian compassion" is being exposed in America.
Robert Paul
@Dennis Brady
Actually, they were a nation of heretic "Christians" who had great disdain (to put it gently) the mainstream Christians in Europe, Latin America and Canada.
Even back in the 19th Century, British Canada and Catholic Quebec saw them as weird.
The American Revolution was inspired very much by disdain for Catholic Quebec.
Actually, they were a nation of heretic "Christians" who had great disdain (to put it gently) the mainstream Christians in Europe, Latin America and Canada.
Even back in the 19th Century, British Canada and Catholic Quebec saw them as weird.
The American Revolution was inspired very much by disdain for Catholic Quebec.
David Amos
@Robert Paul Methinks you read some interesting history books Most folks think such as I believe the Yankee revolt it was about taxation kinda like the Carbon Tax has upset a lot of Canadians N'esy Pas?
Dionne Albert
Nailed it again as usual, Neil. Excellent piece. I recently visited the Smithsonian Museum of American History and was both impressed by the in-depth presentation and disgusted by its content. "America" agressively stole land more than they defended their own. Their treatment of the First Peoples was shocking, not to mention how they "built" their country on the backs of the inhabitants they stole from Africa. They have a lot to answer for, both then and now!
Robert Paul
@Dionne Albert
They still work the lower classes to death.
They still work the lower classes to death.
David Amos
@Dionne Albert Methinks your buddy Neil only impresses his fans and his liberal bosses N'esy Pas?
Brent Christianson
@David Amos
David, you should try to get out more. take a walk, enjoy the neighbourhood. Do a world of good for you.
David, you should try to get out more. take a walk, enjoy the neighbourhood. Do a world of good for you.
David Amos
@Brent Christianson Methinks you stay home and should learn to read N'esy Pas?
Richard Sharp
It is CRAZY that this one man can so upset the world order ALL BY HIMSELF. His party, the Democratic opposition, the corporate media and Americans in the street can't muster beans worth of protests so far. He's running roughshod over everyone. The emperor has no clothes but no one has the guts or power to make the point.
Foreign leaders? Same thing. Way too polite with this monster, including our own PM.
Foreign leaders? Same thing. Way too polite with this monster, including our own PM.
David Amos
@Richard Sharp Methinks you should relax Never mind I am jesting because I know for a fact that you enjoy the circus as much as I You are just fishing for a debate N'esy Pas?
Stephen George
@David Amos
Good news. Check with the circus because I hear they're looking for a new clown.
Good news. Check with the circus because I hear they're looking for a new clown.
David Amos
@Stephen George Methinks you are being rather redundant even for a troll N'esy Pas?
Samuel Spade
I am always bemused by those, of the Christian Right who support Trump and advocate an America that does not embrace peace, does not forgive their enemies, does not love neighbours especially the Latin Americans, does not embrace social spending on the poor, and does not believe they have a responsibility towards “the least of their brethren.”
Clayton Allen
@Samuel Spade So what? It's all made up. If you're gonna worship your invisible friend why not pick and choose how and why. I mean you're starting with people who defy every scientific discovery in the past .... Ever!
David Amos
@Clayton Allen Good point. Methinks that every army in every war in history had some invisible friends on their side no matter what side of the dispute they were on Many times they had the same gods N'esy Pas?
This is not America? Oh, yes, it is: Neil Macdonald
Trump has sensed that his voters want ruthlessness, and he's delivering
Centuries later, American presidents would return repeatedly to Winthrop's hilltop-city metaphor, the first invocation of American exceptionalism. JFK. Barack Obama. And Ronald Reagan, adding his own words: "a tall, proud city … teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here."
Go ahead, read that again. Then read today's news headlines.
- Separation of parents, kids at U.S.-Mexico border: How the Trump administration got here
- Republicans on defensive, but Trump digs in on separating parents and children at border
But it was an ideal, and during most of my lifetime, at least, America inched closer to it. Its biggest cities became increasingly multiracial, then increasingly interracial. It showed the world what rule of law really meant. The nation elected a black president. And in the last century, America pushed successfully for rules-based trade, reasoning that nations with interlaced economies don't make war on one another.
Reagan's vision of free ports humming with commerce, surrounded by walls with doors open to courageous, exhausted new arrivals actually took form.
But it was never real. The changes were always grudging, and, it turns out, easily dismantled by a man never as elegantly articulate as JFK or Reagan or Obama, but who nonetheless better represents the true soul of America.
Along the southern border, families with the will and the heart to flee misery and seek asylum are being torn apart — the parents charged and prosecuted and deported, rather than welcomed through open doors. Their children, alone and terrified, sit numbly in tent cities erected by ICE, Donald Trump's freshly empowered immigration enforcers, who keep visiting do-gooders away, even papering over windows to hide what's going on within.
A woman sent back to Guatemala without her son tearfully wonders if she will ever see him again.
A former Republican first lady compares the detention centres to the Japanese-American internment camps of the Second World War.
A former military general, and former CIA and NSA director, noted that other governments have separated children from parents, tweeting a picture of Auschwitz-Birkenau's railroad spur.
Most of the criticism has invoked morality, or Christian values. But this president is clearly uninterested in either, despite his closeness to evangelical Christian leaders and his own avowal of faith.
He's sensed that his voters, which are really what count, want ruthlessness, and that they can easily be persuaded to see it as patriotic: a notion he eagerly promotes.
Any criticism he treats as just politics, the easiest course of action in a country where even Supreme Court decisions are regarded as partisan.
The stated purpose of his policy is to make it clear to the world that having the "will and the heart" to get to the shining city on the hilltop will leave you in prison and your children at least temporarily orphaned. Trump wants to build an actual wall around the hilltop city, one with no doors, topped with concertina wire. Judging from his successes so far, he likely will.
U.S. immigration detention policy comes under renewed fire
00:0002:03
Which brings us to the hilltop city's free ports, humming with commerce. Trump is single handedly putting an end to that, too, making something else clear to the world: rules-based trade and commerce is for chumps.
To him, America's allies are weak fools – he actually taunts them publicly – who need to understand that what counts is American power, against which they cannot prevail. Either they accept his terms, or he crushes them. Already, he's labelled their exports a threat to America's national security.
His protectionist tariffs are already sending shocks through the interconnected global economy, and have prominent economists disbelievingly calculating the costs.
There's some irony here, of course. The political left has denounced globalization and the lowering of trade barriers for years. Well, they're about to get what they wanted, from a most unlikely hero.
Rationally, you'd expect unimpeded information and serious analysis about the consequences of Trump's rampage through the hilltop city to fuel a backlash so immediate as to stop him in his tracks.
But, as has been demonstrated repeatedly in the year and a half since Trump's victory, facts don't matter anymore, and neither do the journalists and experts who struggle to put them forth.
Trump blames Democrats for child separation at border
00:0000:39
Fact-checking, the essence of journalism, no longer matters much, says Rosen, because it carries no consequence.
Politicians, caught lying, used to at least stop repeating the lie, even if they wouldn't admit having lied. Being a proven liar was just too uncomfortable. No longer. Trump lies easily and overwhelmingly; he couldn't give a toss about fact-checkers, and neither do his supporters. The brazen lie is now of no more consequence than serial philandering or consorting with foreign enemies who want to corrupt elections.
Donald Trump, who loves winning, is winning. He is beating America's allies, he is crushing America's media, he is demonizing and desiccating American law enforcement, and hinting that in the end, he might even use his pardon power to sweep away rule of law. He has in fact already done so.
In her op-ed for The Washington Post, Laura Bush asked for compassion, kindness and morality. This is not America, she argued.
Well, yes it is. Trump is America, and America, it turns out, isn't so exceptional after all.
This column is part of CBC's Opinion section. For more information about this section, please read this editor's blog and our FAQ.
No more. I’ll do my business and spend my vacations right here in Canada.