…and the reviews aren’t so good.  Mine, for what it’s worth, is appended at the end. Feel free to add yours in comments.

• Andrew Coyne, Post: “Justin Trudeau delivers a crawlingly demeaning performance while welcoming Eve Adams…feigned high-mindedness…gut-emptying shame…particularly painful…jaw-dropping self-abasement..For [Conservative secrets], Mr. Trudeau would endure any indignity.”
• Chantal Hebert, Star: “Liberal embrace of Eve Adams doesn’t add up…a counterintuitive choice…it is unclear whether the timing of Trudeau’s announcement on Monday was meant to praise the addition of Adams to his ranks or to bury it.”
• Lawrence Martin, Globe: “[The cabinet shuffle] doused the news of Tory lightweight Eve Adams’s floor-crossing to the Liberals. The Liberals should have figured the shuffle was coming and held off on their little coup if they wanted more attention for it.”
• Robyn Urback, Post: “Justin Trudeau entered the morning presser accompanied by Mississauga-Brampton South MP Eve Adams…There were audible gasps from the gallery — and giggles. No, no you’re not supposed to laugh! Stop it.”
• Murray Mandryk, StarPhoenix: “It’s this kind of cynical manoeuvre that feeds the public’s appetite to stay as far away from politics – and polling booths – as possible…[it] only serves to cement the negative image most voters already have of the way politics is done in Canada.”
• Paul Wells, Maclean’s: “Harper is the major-party leader most respondents would trust to run a large company, counsel an investor, or negotiate a contract. Respondents imagined Trudeau would be the best leader to sing a song, babysit a pet or survive in the wilderness. [On the day of Adams’ floor-crossing and the cabinet shuffle], both leaders seemed hard at work deepening their differences.”
• Les MacPherson, StarPhoenix: “[Trudeau] looked about as comfortable with Adams by his side as Jimmy Kimmel with a large snake delivered into his arms.”
• Warren Kinsella, Nobody In Particular: “Adams got what she wanted.  Trudeau didn’t. He should have said ‘no’ to the idiots who came up with this stunt. He didn’t.”

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When Barack Obama’s Democratic Party loses the support of the likes of Anti-Flag, they’re probably in big trouble.

Consider that, in 2008 and 2012, Barack Obama and his Democrats won power because they captured previously elusive constituencies: Hispanics, African-Americans, and so on. But Obama won both of his mandates because he was the overwhelming choice of young people, most of whom don’t usually vote.

In 2008, Obama received the support of nearly 70% of those who were 18 to 29 years of age. In 2012, Obama’s under-30 support slipped somewhat, but he was still the clear favourite of America’s youth. In both years, young Americans put Obama in the White House.

So what happens in 2016 then, when that demographic starts to drift away from the Democratic Party?

Chris Barker – otherwise known as Chris Two in the legendary Pittsburgh punk band Anti-Flag – is arguably one of the most political guys, in one of the most political bands in the world. His band has put together 10 albums over a nearly 20-year career, and has composed multiple anthems against war, imperialism, capitalism – and has rallied support for Occupy Wall Street, Amnesty International and Greenpeace. In 2008, for instance, they played outside the Republican National Convention – until the police pulled the plug, and shut them down.

A few weeks later, Chris Two attended the inauguration of the aforementioned Barack Obama, hopeful that it would represent a change in American politics. To Chris, it didn’t.

“While the election of Barack Obama was received by world-wide sigh of relief, and a belief that we had aimed ourselves towards a better direction for America and the rest of the world…it didn’t,” Chris says. “I went to the inauguration and I felt moved, and I felt there was hope, in that first month. I bought in. I since then feel as if it’s been politics as usual – with almost more secrecy.

“And that’s actually made us more afraid of the Democrats than the Republicans. The Republicans had no [desire] to hide what they were doing. They just did it. But now, with Obama’s administration, you see far more happening behind closed doors. And that, to me, has been the most concerning thing of the two terms of Barack Obama.” And, when you consider the sad tales of the NSA’s domestic spying program, as well as the demonization of whistleblowers, you know he’s right.

Chris – who plays bass and sings in Anti-Flag, along with singer/guitarist Justin Sane, guitarist Chris Head, and drummer Pat Thetic – is careful when he speaks. While his band is well known for wild, fist-pumping shows – which this writer has, full disclosure, attended many times – Chris Two sounds as knowledgeable as a regular CNN talking head. More so, in fact.

“On some level, it feels like we are moving backwards – to the election of a Jeb Bush, for example,” Chris says over the phone line, during a stop on the band’s current tour across North America. “That’s tough for me to say. But the finger on the pulse of the youth vote that I have comes from the people who come to our shows. And those people feel as I do, and that we need to stop this endless cycle that we’re on.”

There’s a feeling of hopelessness that is again pervasive among young voters, Chris says – a feeling that they cannot influence who will be their next “president or prime minister.” Or, when they try to do so, the new boss will be just as bad as the old boss.

“The biggest threat, however, is throwing our hands up and removing ourselves from the democratic process,” Chris concludes. “Because, you know, it’s not going to stop. If you don’t speak, someone is going to speak instead.

“If you’re not accounted for, that matters.”

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(And, for clarity’s sake, I wasn’t denied in the “green light” process – I simply didn’t bother. Life’s too short, etc.)

Warren:

Here’s one of the things pissing me off about the eve Adams thing:

1) you don’t get green lit because you’ve been critical of the lpc

2) but a conservative mp who’s kicked the shit out of lpc for the past four years does

3) Christine innes doesn’t get to run for the lpc because her husband “bullied” members of the riding assoc

4) but eve Adams does even though there are few ppl in politics tougher than dimitri Soudas.

It’s all bullshit.

XXX”

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It’s a happy day. If you take everyone at their word, that is. Here’s why:

• The Cons are happy because they no longer have around someone they insist they didn’t want around.
• The Grits are happy because they’ve boosted their caucus (short term), possibly picked up a seat (long term), and actually kept a caucus development secret, for once.
• The Dippers are happy because…oh wait. They’re not happy.

Anyway. Two out of three ain’t bad.

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My friends Laura Miller and Eve Adams (coincidentally) are both in the news today, for different reasons. So, here is some of a column I did awhile back, wherein both women (coincidentally) are mentioned.

Oh, and my take on the Ottawa drama? I don’t see much downside for either Adams or Trudeau. Being an election year, weird stuff happens.

**

It was a little thing, apparently. A tweet, a bit of digital detritus, something that comes and goes, with little or no attention paid. Happens all the time.

What made it significant was not its casual sexism, or even that the tweet’s author (a high-profile columnist) or its target (a former deputy chief of staff to former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty) are both female.

No, what made it most noteworthy was that, after the sexist tweet was tweeted, no one really said anything. No one really objected…

The occasion was the appearance of senior Ontario Liberal Laura Miller before a political circus masquerading as a legislative committee. As Miller testified about the decision to cancel gas plants — an issue considered moot by voters in McGuinty’s Ottawa South constituency, where they recently enthusiastically elected a former McGuinty aide to replace him in the provincial legislature — the columnist tweeted: “[Miller] looks and talks like a Valley Girl. This woman was the second most powerful person in the Premier’s office? Sad statement.”

What was “sad” was that the columnist — who I won’t name, and who (like all of us) shouldn’t be offering anyone tips about their personal appearance or diction — didn’t think the tweet was a problem.

Perhaps it was because they did not want to get on the wrong side of the arch-conservative columnist (unlikely). Perhaps they didn’t notice the tweet (unlikelier)…

Whatever the reason, one thing was axiomatic: What was noteworthy wasn’t the rank sexism. In politics, women get hit with that all the time, pretty much. What was significant, instead, is that even progressive political voices remained mostly silent.

In a scrum, with a straight face, Ottawa Citizen reporter Glen McGregor asks Conservative MP Michelle Rempel about hair products. No one objects. Before her re-election, B.C. Premier Christy Clark gets called a “MILF” by a radio host — that is, a “Mom I’d Like to (Expletive)” — and the ostensibly progressive B.C. NDP say nothing.

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath gets called “a whore” by a radio commentator, and the other political panellists on the show — labour leader Buzz Hargrove and business leader Catherine Swift — say nada.
The sexism is bad enough; The indifference of people who should know better makes it measurably worse.

…There are other infamous examples. Former Liberal cabinet minister Belinda Stronach gets called, variously, a dog, a whore, a bitch and a prostitute — and her critics (all Conservative politicians) are widely condemned. John Crosbie dismisses Sheila Copps as a baby, and ends up boosting her reputation, and diminishing his own.

Too often, however, these things pass without comment. Sexism directed at female politicos receives a collective shrug. It’s almost worse than the sexist remark that preceded it.

Oh, and Laura Miller? She’s no dummy. And she deserved a lot better than she got — not just from the columnist, but from erstwhile friends, too.

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Last night, my (feminist) partner and I went to see a movie.  The trailers came on, and one was for Fifty Shades of Grey, which has attracted no small amount of controversy.  When we got home, I looked up the plot on Wikipedia.  Here’s what I read:

“The tension between Ana and Christian eventually comes to a head after Ana asks Christian to punish her…Christian fulfills Ana’s request, beating her with a belt.”

That’s how the thing ends, apparently.  Sound like entertainment to you? Me neither.

Anyway, I tweeted this:

After seeing trailer, looked up the plot of this #FiftyShades book/movie. So, beating a woman with a belt is entertainment, then?

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) February 8, 2015

Which attracted a fair bit of agreement, but also this:

I thought that was an idiotic comment, and suggested the author do PR for Jian Ghomeshi. She responded that I was “cheap and uninformed.” That may be so, but I got curious about my correspondent. So I went looking, and here’s what I found:

Wow. So I asked her this:

.@lmitchell So the #NDP Status of Women critic also agrees that women being beaten with a belt is entertainment? #cdnpoli — Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) February 8, 2015

She didn’t respond. She did, however, delete her earlier tweets, in which she defended the beating of a woman with a belt.

Today’s NDP: still full of shit.

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When Canada Goose was sold to a U.S. Hedge fund, I stitched this over their logo in protest. Today, I display it to remember Tuff Gong on his 70th birthday. Likkle more!

 

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Choose your gut over your head. You can’t go wrong.

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At what point, exactly, do you finally admit you were tragically, fundamentally, historically wrong?

(Reuters) – Islamic State militants are selling abducted Iraqi children at markets as sex slaves, and killing other youth, including by crucifixion or burying them alive, a United Nations watchdog said on Wednesday.

Iraqi boys aged under 18 are increasingly being used by the militant group as suicide bombers, bomb makers, informants or human shields to protect facilities against U.S.-led air strikes, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said.

“We are really deeply concerned at torture and murder of those children, especially those belonging to minorities, but not only from minorities,” committee expert Renate Winter told a news briefing. “The scope of the problem is huge.”

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About this:

“Twitter is expected on Thursday to announce a new partnership with Google, clearing the way for tweets on the microblogging service to be easier to find on the world’s most popular search engine.

The deal, according to a person familiar with the matter, will give Google direct access to the hundreds of millions of tweets that flow through Twitter every day, and make it possible for tweets to more quickly appear in Google search results.”

The war roomers will be delighted that they will now be able to quickly locate stupid tweets made by their opponents, and disseminate them to grateful media organizations who cannot afford to cover campaigns like they used to.

And then the war roomers will remember that, um, their opponents will be able to do the same thing to them.

Ain’t politics grand?

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