A discussion of the Magna Carta documentary and other matters with my friend "Nick @ Night!" Vandergragt on 580 CFRA News Talk Radio in Ottawa on March 15. [embed]http://www.thejohnrobson.com/podcast/John2015/March/Nick@Night_March15.mp3[/embed]
Barely a week after the latest bizarre Clinton scandal erupted, this time Hillary's inexplicable decision to use a private personal system for all her email while Secretary of State without telling anyone, a company in Connecticut has created a Hillary Clinton action figure complete with Blackberry. Some people find the general rowdiness of the United States, including its political system, off-putting. They prefer genteel stuffiness in which establishment boats are not rocked and pundits and statespersons are not mocked.
The U.S. political system certainly has its failings, some shared with other Western democracies including Canada and some unique to itself. But I think we need more of the wide-open, lively, dynamic American tone. Their political culture reacts faster, more pointedly and more frankly, letting in more air and making more room for honest expressions of public sentiment.
Charles Adler was guest-hosting the Roy Green show today and invited me on to discuss topics from Manitoba politics to Hillary Clinton's presidential prospects (dismal, I say) to our successful Kickstarter campaign to produce a documentary on the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. (The Magna Carta bit starts at 10:20) [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/194904663" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]
John Ivison in the National Post laments how Parliament is ceasing to control executive branch spending as a departure from the principle of individual freedom from arbitrary government.
The National Post just published my article on how legislators aren't keeping the executive in line (or judges) and we aren't making them do it. Politics isn't a fun sport with orange, blue and red competing for supremacy. It's about protecting our life, liberty and property. We need to remember that, and make the people we elect act on it.
Apparently it's amusing and cute that Vice President Joe Biden has a habit of getting inappropriately close to women. Of course if it were a Republican it would be an outrage.
Yes, there was news on Sun News Network. My colleague David Akin offers a spirited defence of the network in Maclean's, pointing out that for all the mockery of our station, his Battleground show in particular often gave more detailed attention to politics and election campaigns than our rivals, including in-depth election night coverage. He's right, and I'd just like to add that, as part of that coverage especially on David's show, the network sent me to just about every province holding an election between 2011 and 2014 to film historical vignettes and other backgrounders to provide context for the current partisan clashes.
You can see a number of those on YouTube and I think it's fair to say "packs" like this one on the rhythm of BC politics offer a depth of background on politics you rarely find on the other stations. Sure, we had our failings. But when we say we were doing something different, David brings up one more important way it was true.
Of course sometimes we were snide. At least, I certainly was. But if you watch, say, my comments on Tim Hudak during the last Ontario election, would you say now I was off-target or too harsh?
So I was checking out caveman sex in Israel and I had a sudden insight about global warming. Click here to read the rest.