Hurricane

Wednesday November 4, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 4, 2020

Trump prematurely crowns himself winner in chaotic U.S. election that remains undecided

The ingredients have now been assembled for a combustible post-election aftermath in the United States. And Donald Trump has begun flinging matches.

November 9, 2016

Uncertainty had been predicted for months and early returns confirmed that voting day would indeed pass without a clear winner.

As in 2016, Trump outperformed the polls, forcing a state-by-state duel with Democratic challenger Joe Biden that could conceivably culminate in Trump winning a second term.

The result could become clearer within hours, or perhaps days.

States are still counting mail-in ballots, which tend to skew Democrat, and Biden is quickly narrowing gaps in the count in several states; in some cases, he’s possibly set to overtake Trump.

October 31, 2020

The chaotic finale illustrates the country’s bitter polarization; the parties are arguing about which types of ballots are legitimate.

The president has eagerly fanned that polarization. Early Wednesday morning, he falsely claimed that he had already won. Trump did so in an unusual rally from the White House, a seat of government not typically used for election events. 

“This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment,” Trump said from the executive residence. “We did win this election.”

Trump promised to head to court to try cutting off the counting of votes. 

In Pennsylvania, for example, Republicans have been trying to cancel the counting of ballots that are postmarked before election day but arrive after. It’s one of more than 350 such casesthis year over pandemic-related voting measures. (CBC) 

 

Wednesday September 4, 2019

September 4, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday September 4, 2019

Trump defends weekend of golf while Hurricane Dorian approached and Poland remembered Nazi invasion

President Trump lashed out at Sadiq Khan Tuesday after London’s mayor criticized him for golfing over the weekend as Hurricane Dorian edged closer to the coast of Florida.

April 13, 2018

“The incompetent Mayor of London, Sadique Kahn [sic], was bothered that I played a very fast round of golf yesterday,” said Trump in a tweet that, before being corrected, misspelled Khan’s first and last names. “Many Pols exercise for hours, or travel for weeks. Me, I run through one of my courses (very inexpensive). President Obama would fly to Hawaii.”

Khan, who attended a ceremony in Poland over the weekend commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland that began World War II, chided the president for skipping the event in favor of golfing at his private club in Virginia.

“He’s clearly busy dealing with a hurricane out on the golf course,” Khan told Politico on Monday, adding that Trump “is a guy who amplifies racist tweets; amplifies the tweets of fascists; says things that are deeply objectionable. If I don’t stand up and call that out I think I’m doing a disservice to Londoners who chose me as their mayor.”

Over the holiday weekend, the president played multiple rounds of golf at one of his properties in Virginia, where White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said he received “hourly updates.”

July 18, 2016

Trump’s golf trips have cost taxpayers over $100 million through the first two and a half years of his term, as he’s spent 227 days at one of his golf clubs as president. Former President Barack Obama did usually spend his Christmas vacations in his home state of Hawaii but did not fly there just to golf.

In August, the president canceled a visit to Denmark because the country’s prime minister was not open to the idea of selling Greenland to the United States. His cancellation of the trip to Poland drew little initial criticism until it was learned that he spent the weekend golfing.

“To ensure that all resources of the federal government are focused on the arriving storm, I have decided to send our vice president, Mike Pence, to Poland this weekend in my place,” Trump said last week. “It’s something very important for me to be here. The storm looks like it could be a very, very big one indeed.”

On Sunday, Trump was asked if he had any message for Poland on the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion.

“I just want to congratulate Poland,” Trump replied, adding, “It’s a great country with great people.” (Yahoo News) 

 

Friday August 30, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 30, 2019

Trump floated the idea of using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes headed for US

President Donald Trump has floated multiple times the idea of thwarting hurricanes headed for the US by bombing them, including by dropping nuclear bombs on hurricanes to disrupt their course, Axios reported Sunday, citing conversations with sources who heard Trump’s comments and were briefed on a National Security Council memo that recorded the comments.

September 23, 2005

In an early Monday tweet, Trump denied the Axios’ report, claiming that he “never said” what was in it. CNN has not been able to independently verify the report.

According to Axios, the President has suggested the idea several times to senior Homeland Security and national security officials that they look into the idea of using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes from hitting the US. A source who was at a hurricane briefing at the White House told the outlet that the President once said of hurricanes, “I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?”

The source, who paraphrased Trump’s remarks to Axios, said that the President said, “They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?” Asked by Axios how the briefer responded to the President’s suggestion, the source said he “said something to the effect of, ‘Sir, we’ll look into that.’”

April 6, 2017

The President then asked how many hurricanes the US may be able to stop and reiterated his suggestions, according to the source, which caused the briefer to be “knocked back on his heels.”

“You could hear a gnat fart in that meeting. People were astonished. After the meeting ended, we thought, ‘What the f—? What do we do with this?'” the source told Axios.

According to the outlet, Trump also raised the idea of using bombs to stop hurricanes during a 2017 conversation with a senior administration official. A source briefed on a NSC memo describing that conversation told Axios that the document does not contain the word “nuclear.” According to sources the outlet spoke to about that conversation, despite Trump’s interest in the idea, it “went nowhere and never entered a formal policy process.”

April 11, 2017

The idea of using nuclear bombs “to counteract convection currents” was floated during the Eisenhower administration, Axios reported, and has continued to resurface even though government scientists have said it will not work.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in an online fact sheet titled “Tropical Cyclone Myths Page, detonating a nuclear weapon over a hurricane “might not even alter the storm,” and the idea “neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems.” (CNN)  

 

Wednesday September 12, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday September 12, 2018

Local elections getting lost in the sound and fury

Between Doug Ford’s unprecedented antics at Queen’s Park, Donald Trump’s daily bombastic proclamations and NAFTA negotiations, it’s little wonder local elections — in Hamilton and across Ontario — are being drowned out. But it’s time for that to change.

Our municipal governments have more impact on our day-to-day lives than their more senior brethren. Yes, they’re at the bottom of the food chain — as Ford has so brazenly demonstrated — but they deliver front-line services. Our sidewalks and roads, our safe water supply, public transit, recreational centres and parks, waste disposal, libraries, animal control, tax collection — these and a host of other services and costs flow directly from city hall. 

And every four years, we have a chance to pass judgment on the current city council. We can endorse them, collectively or individually. We can change out people we’re not happy with. We can clean house if that’s appropriate (even though we get to vote only for our respective ward councillor, mayor and school trustees).

So while Ford and Trump may be more dramatic (and melodramatic), it behooves us to pay attention to what’s coming up on Monday, Oct. 22. The Spectator has already begun to do that, and we plan to ramp up our coverage beginning this week. 

Bottom line: If you live here, pay taxes, raise kids, retire, and you’re an engaged citizen, these elections matter. Don’t miss the opportunity to get involved in local democracy.(Continued: Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Tuesday September 12, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday September 12, 2017

Liberals enduring two scandal trials

Two Ontario Liberals went to trial last Thursday on Election Act bribery charges stemming from a 2015 byelection in Sudbury, but the stakes are also high for Premier Kathleen Wynne herself.

 

December 18, 2015

The Sudbury trial happens nearly simultaneously with another Liberal trial – related to the cancellation of two gas plants – which makes for terrible optics for the party. But while that second trial involves staffers for former premier Dalton McGuinty, the Sudbury scandal is one forged entirely under Wynne’s tenure.

The premier herself is set to testify on Sept. 13.

“Politically, it’s not good,” said Nadia Verrelli, an assistant political science professor at Sudbury’s Laurentian University.

Regardless of the outcome, it may focus the provincial election campaign – with a vote nine months away – on questions about the Liberals’ integrity rather than their policies, she said.

Pat Sorbara, at the time the Ontario Liberal Party CEO, faces two charges and Gerry Lougheed, a Sudbury Liberal fundraiser, faces one charge. They both deny wrongdoing.

September 29, 2015

In late 2014, the Sudbury riding became vacant when the New Democrat who won it five months earlier stepped down for health reasons. The Liberals had their eye on winning back a riding that until 2014 they held for about two decades.

Andrew Olivier, who was the Liberals’ candidate in the riding in the general election, wanted to run again, but Wynne had other ideas. She ended up successfully luring the riding’s NDP MP – Glenn Thibeault – to run for the provincial Liberals.

One of Sorbara’s charges relates to an allegation she promised to get Thibeault “an office or employment” to induce him to become a candidate, which both deny.

Sorbara and Lougheed are alleged to have offered Olivier a job or appointment in exchange for stepping aside for Thibeault, who was ultimately given the post of energy minister last year.

Wynne has said that she had already decided Olivier would not be the byelection candidate by the time Sorbara and Lougheed spoke to him, therefore anything offered was not in exchange for stepping aside. Rather, Wynne says, she was trying to keep him in the party fold. (Source: Global News)