New one. May sell.
Part of proceeds go to Ukrainian Red Cross.
KINSELLACAST 349 with the Rt. Hon. Jean Chretien! On Trump, tariffs and more – plus Lilley, Kheiriddin, Belanger, Johal and big hits from year 2000!
Liberal leadership: my take
Me on Unpublished Cafe on the Liberal leadership and the Mango Mussolini.
My latest: over the boards – and fight back
“Flooding the zone” is a football term, but it’s been appropriated by political people.
In football, flooding the zone happens when a team sends a lot of receivers to one side of the field – to force the other team to overcommit defenders to that side of the field, and thereby leave the middle or opposite side of the field exposed.
Political guys loves sports metaphors, because it makes them sound like tough guys, instead of what they mostly are, which is dweebs who never got picked for any team, and who got involved with the debate club instead.
Donald Trump’s Reubenesque former Chief of Staff, Steve Bannon, is apparently out of jail now, and he loves to use that term. In 2018, Bannon famously said this to a writer at Bloomberg: “The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh*t.”
Politicos love that tough-guy jocky stuff. So, over on the search engine Bing, which keeps track of these things, “flood the zone” shows up in 2,280,000 places, most of them in the context of politics. Sorry, football.
So, that’s what the aforementioned Trump is now doing, albeit without the assistance of Bannon (see jail, above). He’s flooding the zone with sh*t.
There is literally not enough room in this entire newspaper to properly describe what Trump and his winged monkeys have done in the 27 days since he was re-inaugurated (feels like 27 years, don’t it?). Suffice to say it’s been a lot.
He’s thrown Ukraine to the Russian wolves. He’s threatened to use military force against Denmark, a NATO ally, to seize Greenland. He’s threatened force against Panama, another ally. He’s freed January 6 felons, and fired FBI agents. He’s pulled out of the World Health Organization and hired an anti-vaxxer and former junkie to run health care. He’s changed the names of mountains and bodies of water to things he likes better. He’s barred reporters who ask questions he doesn’t like.
And, most significantly, he’s threatened to use “economic force” against Canada. He’s said, a couple dozen times, that he wants to make us the 51st state. He’s mocked our Prime Minister and our Leader of the Opposition. He’s said that we offer nothing of value. And so on and so on.
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Happy birthday
Many guys will understand what I mean when I say this: your father is both a bit of light, and a bit of shadow, over your path through life.
Mine, T. Douglas Kinsella, MD, OC, would have been 93 years old today. Ninety-three! So many years after we lost him, he remains a constant in our lives. He still illuminates some of the path. Without even being here, he still quietly persuades me to examine the choices I have made.
Me? I have made some bad choices. I have been reckless and selfish. I have not lived by the single rule he left us.
“Love people, and be honest,” he said to us, and I sometimes feel I have done neither.
He saved many lives as a physician, and he won accolades, and he was a member of the Order of Canada. But for us – my brothers, my nephew he raised, my closest friends – he was the man we aspired to be. Not for the distinctions he received, but for how he was, in his heart.
He was unfailingly honest; he was kind to everyone he met. He married his high school sweetheart, and was with her every single day for 50 years, and my God how they loved each other. We would sit there at the kitchen table in Calgary or Kingston or Montreal, and we would listen to him. He’d listen to us, too, and persuade us to try and figure things out. There were some great times, around that table.
The best thing is having a father like that. The harder thing is knowing that you will never be like him.
I met a girl, once, who had also lost her father, too soon, and never got over it. Fell in love with her just for that. Hope she finally finds peace.
Anyway. I had a dream that my Dad died in 9/11; I don’t know why, but I did. I woke up weeping, and remembered that I wasn’t a boy anymore, and that he has been gone for much more than a decade. I don’t think he would like what his son has become. I usually don’t.
So I put on my pants and shoes, and went out into the day, looking for what’s left of the path.
Happy birthday. I miss you.
The unChurchill
When a country is under attack, when the people want a leader to rally behind, the guy who sneers that the country is “broken” is not who you want leading you into battle.
Slava Ukraini
Sold! With part of the proceeds going to the Ukrainian Red Cross!
PSA
This is your periodic reminder that I proudly volunteered for Kamala Harris and none of this – none of it – would be happening if we’d won.
Elections have consequences.
Warren loves democracy
I love seeing photos of candidates, of every political stripe, smiling as they canvass and go door-to-door. It’s the purest form of democracy, and I’m a sucker for that. Thanks to every one of them.
This is a photograph that I will cherish until the end of my days
