Conservatism ascending, Italian style

Italy has come a long way since WWII. Especially under current prime minister Georgia Meloni. The recent referendum proves it.

Alberta referendum by 2026?

Canada's western province of Alberta, think of it as the Texas of Canada, could vote to depart Canada as early as next year. While the provincial premier Danielle Smith explicitly stated that her government does not endorse it... and then followed up with rule changes for voting and referendum rules; hinting that, if the citizens of the province want to leave, they have a means to do so.  Hint, hint.

What a lot of Americans get wrong about Canada, is that it is a liberal leftist haven. It isn't. The Liberal party got 43.7% of the total vote, the Conservative party got 41.3%.  That's almost parity.  This despite the fact that Canada has ZERO equivalent of Fox News. Canadian media is a Leftist Wasteland. On top of which, what the Liberals do far better than conservatives is allocate their political spend hyper-strategically and to great effect; winning swing ridings (districts) very efficiently.  There is a strong conservative inclination in much of Canada, and not just the West. 

I live in Ontario, a traditionally Liberal-leaning province. Except that's due almost entirely to the major urban centers. If you get outside of cities like Toronto or Ottawa (like I am), the provincial voters are much more like Alberta voters; conservative, most often Christian, and if you didn't notice an accent, you could easily mistake them for an American conservative voter.

Nevertheless we lost, and are going to suffer even more now, under further far left dogma leadership but this time with a mask of centrism. And believe me, Canada's middle class and working class are being gutted by these policies.

I've seen a lot of comments on YouTube videos from Americans about Canada that are unduly harsh. When you guys were suffering under Let's Go Brandon's atrocious 'presidency', we empathized; we cheered for a return of Trump. Obviously not all Canadians but definitely the majority of conservatives.  Some of the comments I have seen have been not only ignorant of the details, but downright belligerent. I get America has been ripped by most every country on earth. I get the America First mentality. I support it in fact. But Canada, DESPITE the leftist leadership of the last decade, has been a stalwart ally of America. Such comments are both undeserved and beneath Americans. 

I know it's anecdotal and not necessarily indicative of anything more widespread, but on YouTube at least, it's pretty pervasive. As a Canadian conservative in a province that is left leaning due only to a few densely populated areas, I have to say that sort of response is quite disheartening to see. 

Crimean ballots don't matter

Crimean voters were at the polls today for a referendum.  The issue: to join Russia now, or join Russia later. That's the list of choices. 

Ballots were being counted, and the first numbers from the referendum on whether Ukraine's Crimea region should join Russia or become an independent state were expected in a matter of hours after polls closed Sunday night, an election official said.

Crimean Electoral Commission head Mikhail Malyshev said more than 80% of voters had cast ballots by the time polls closed at 8 p.m. local time (2 p.m. ET). Preliminary results will be announced at 10:30 p.m. local time (4:30 p.m ET) Sunday.

The United States has already said it expects the Black Sea peninsula's majority ethnic Russian population to vote in favor of joining Russia. Moscow has strongly backed the referendum. The White House released a statement that said the vote was "administered under threats of violence and intimidation from a Russian military intervention that violates international law."

The referendum results don't matter. Threats aside, there's no 'NO' option for voters. The referendum is flawed. Even a weak foreign policy president can't ignore the escalation that will necessarily result from events in Crimea.  

The next step from the E.U. and the U.S. is likely to be sanctions.  Russia may yet feel emboldened to consider a similar soft invasion in eastern Ukraine.  But what happens next is still a matter of conjecture.

As goes Greece, so goes the recovery.

Last week I recall telling a friend that the EU would not allow Greece to fail.  Sure, there would be strict austerity measures imposed.  Sure there would be massive protests in heavily subsidized, socialist Greece.  But in the end the countries in the European Union would be compelled to take a bit out of the crap sandwich that is the Greek bailout.  Sure enough it looked for a while that the deal was done.  For a while.  Today it looks like "not so fast".

Out of touch - example 34C

According to the Canadian Press;

In rare praise, U.S. calls Venezuelan presidential referendum democratic

WASHINGTON — The United States says the referendum that cleared the way for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to run for re-election was democratic.

It was rare praise for a U.S. antagonist after years of criticism.

State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid today noted "troubling reports of
intimidation."

But he added that for the most part, the referendum was "fully consistent with democratic process."

Was it? Was it really? Oh it must be, because Russia news and information agency RIA NOVOSTI had this to say in it's commentary about the next steps:

MOSCOW, February 19 (RIA Novosti) - President Hugo Chavez is expected to sign into law on Thursday an amendment to Venezuela's constitution removing term limits for the head of state and other elected officials.

The central elections committee released the official results of Sunday's referendum
on Wednesday and passed them to Venezuela's National Assembly. The parliament
will review the results and pass them to the president to be signed into law. The amendment changes the wording of the country's constitution from "the president may be reelected only once" to simply "the president may be reelected."

Some 11.7 million people cast ballots out of the 17 million eligible to vote. The referendum was passed with 6.3 million for (54.86%) and 5.2 million against 45.13%). International observers and the U.S. State Department have confirmed that the voting process met international democratic standards.

(emphasis added)



It seems that the Obama administration is either turning a blind eye towards the truth in the spirit of "can't we all just get along?" (the Rodney King school of diplomacy), or it's happy with a socialist victory (let's hope that isn't the case), or else as I suspect is the case, they are simply out of touch with the reality of what is confronting them.


Obama is interested in improving the American image around the world, and the approach he is taking is similar to his laissez-faire attitude with Chicago-style corruption within the Democratic party. DON'T ROCK THE BOAT, BABY!


The people of Venezuela are being taken for a ride and it's the type of ride where the body gets dumped out of the trunk into the river or a shallow grave. But for the present administration, it seems that making nice with the Chavez junta is more important. There's no back bone there and more importantly, there's no payoff. What's the point in being friendly with this guy?


1. Obama, you are the new face of Satan as far as he's concerned. He's not likely to be friendly back anyway.

2. Even if you befriend him, what does it do for America? You want to reduce dependence on OPEC oil anyway, so why does he matter? [That's rhetorical, I'm pretty sure he doesn't matter to you much].

3. Befriending him is a short term gain at BEST, since after a while (perhaps after a decade or two more in power) he will be seen as the corrupt politician in America's pocket and the people of Venezuela will harbor no more good will towards America than they now have.

4. Being friends with socialists betrays the spirit of America - the spirit of rugged individualism that made America great.


Out of touch. Short sighted. Moving in the wrong direction. Example 34C of a growing list of shortcomings that prove the real Messiah was never up for election in 2008.

Venezuelan Election Fraud

On Sunday I posted an entry on Hugo Chavez' victory on the referendum to change the country's Constitution to allow him to run for President as often as he wants. In other words, to abolish term limits.

A very brave commenter from Venezuela posted a comment that gave me chills. He spoke about how the voting machines seemed to be set up to spoil the ballots those who voted against the amendment. It's very brave of someone living in Venezuela to do such a thing as it can have a negative effect on one's personal life. I don't know the extent of the negative impact, but I'm sure it's unpleasant.

I've tried to inform some more connected, high profile bloggers about this to see if there's any way to investigate the voting machines or anything else that can be done to verify this or at least cause scrutiny.

Later in the evening another anonymous comment came from inside Venezuela with more details. Given the bravery of the comments from with the country of Venezuela, I wouldn't dare risk exposing the commenter at all. They deserve and need their anonymity.

The second comment though, was even more chilling than the first. I'm asking anyone who reads this to please share the comments with anyone you can get to listen, particularly if you can share it with anyone at Fox News, or Hot Air or similar high enough profile organization to make a statement that might resonate. I realize this is only anecdotal evidence, but where there's smoke, there's bound to be fire.