Here’s a thread for the Canadian election
Today’s the day. The prediction is that the liberal will win – and that Trump bears some of the blame:
The Conservative Party had a big lead in polls…until President Donald Trump started his tariff talks and annexing Canada.
“In an Angus Reid Institute poll released on Dec. 30, the Conservatives were in super-majority territory with 45% support, compared to the Liberals at 11%. The results of a poll released on Saturday had the Liberals at 44% with a four-point lead over the Conservatives at 40%.”
Of course, are the polls correct? I certainly don’t know. But it does seem like an oddly fickle response to make Trump’s bluster the deciding factor, and it’s not as though the Conservative candidate is saying he wants Canada to become part of the US. It also seems to me like the country that elected Trudeau over and over and over isn’t suddenly becoming overwhelmingly conservative
Luntz gets it and doesn’t get it
[Hat tip: Althouse]
Here’s an interesting interview with Frank Luntz. Why interesting? Why Luntz? Because he’s emblematic of so many people who sort of get the Trump phenomenon but also fail to get it.
For example, he’s correct here:
Luntz says this level of hostility towards institutions, and the perceived elites that run them, has reached breaking point. “Our institutions are failing,” he says. “What exactly is Congress doing? Are the courts overreaching? Are our schools succeeding? Is healthcare delivering the choice and affordability people need? The answer to all of these is no.
But then he adds this:
“The very moment that Trump has re-ascended to power is the very moment that our institutions are at their weakest and the public is at its angriest. That is leading to a rejection of the status quo and embrace of anything that says: ‘Change’.”
No, not anything that says “change.” The desire is for change of a particular sort – although people on the left also want “change,” the type that moves even further to the left.
Luntz also says:
The institutions rejected by Trump voters are also those that traditionally held the American president to account. “Accountability is essential in a functioning democracy but the media has lost the ability to hold the administration accountable by the way it’s covered it,” Luntz says. “Congress has not been challenging the administration in any meaningful way, and I’m waiting to see what happens with our legal system.”
What does he mean by “the administration? The Trump administration? The media constantly attacks this administration, but does it so incessantly and with such mendacity that it has lost credibility with the majority of people not for lack of “accountability,” but for deceptive and unfair “accountability.” Meanwhile, it made excuses for Biden and almost never even asked him hard questions, while covering up things like the Hunter laptop. There is a gap the size of the Grand Canyon between the media’s coverage of the two presidents, and that is why people have rejected it.
Luntz says he found the strength of this feeling surprising. “In my Trump focus groups, they want to hold judges accountable. They want to hold Congress accountable — not just to defeat them but to punish them. It’s a value I’ve never seen in American politics until now, that desire to punish your opponent.”
Where was Luntz from 2016 to 2024? Where was he for Russiagate, the impeachments, the incessant and vindictive lawfare against Trump (on absurd charges) that sought to bankrupt and/or imprison him (and his family), the threats, the “he’s Hitler” accusations, the winking at or downplaying of violence against Republicans? Does Luntz have a clue why they “want to hold judges accountable”? Does he think judges shouldn’t be held accountable for disobeying the law, for example?
More from Luntz:
The Trump phenomenon could be dismissed as a cult of personality, but Luntz believes otherwise. “You say to me, when Trump leaves, does this go away? I’ll say to you, absolutely not, because of JD Vance,” he says.
Vance’s reputation among the Maga faithful has grown since his assured performance in the vice-presidential debate with Tim Walz, Luntz says. “He presented an ideology behind the Trump cult of personality. Vance found a way to take all the individual aspects of Trump’s policies and put them in a way that will outlast Trump. It was masterful. This is also part of the de-alignment — now there is an ideology and it’s not just Trump’s persona.”
It never was just Trump’s persona. Trump is a dramatic and attention-getting figure, it’s true. But his success wouldn’t have occurred without the dissatisfaction that was already present and criticisms that had already been articulated by many people. It’s not so obscure to think that illegal immigration should stop, that the federal government has grown too large and is out for itself, that the left is soft on crime, that we’ve been involved in too many foreign wars with little to show for it, that men shouldn’t be playing in women’s sports, and that we should become more energy-independent. The “ideology” is common sense and didn’t just start with Trump (and certainly not with Vance), and that’s what gives it its power.
The causes of the DC air collision
The horrific air collision between a military helicopter and passenger jet in the busy DC air corridor last January 29 caused shock and outrage because it seemed evident right from the start that this was the result of error, probably multiple errors. To me, first and foremost, military training flights should not be crossing paths with the approach to a busy airport at all, and especially with allowance for such a low vertical separation. And yet this was allowed, and left no room for error.
Well, there was plenty of error, and we’re learning more about that:
Moments before the deadly Jan. 29 crash near Reagan International Airport, Capt. Rebecca Lobach missed an order from co-pilot Andrew Eaves, who was overseeing her training mission, to change course and avoid the descending American Airlines jet, the New York Times reported.
Along with the error, officials found that the pilots “stepped on” some of the air traffic controller’s instructions, meaning they accidentally cut him off when pressing the button to talk over the radio and likely missed important information. …
During that moment, investigators believe Eaves and Lobach failed to hear that the American Airlines plane was “circling” because one of them was pressing the microphone key to speak to air traffic control when the word came through. …
Technology on the Black Hawk that would have allowed air traffic control to better track the helicopter was also found to be turned off that day, common protocol if the training mission had been for real.
But it was a practice mission …
Aviation experts have long bemoaned the practice of allowing pilots to navigate on their own [which was the case here] …
There was also an apparent discrepancy between two of the three Army pilots aboard the doomed chopper about what altitude they were flying at, according to investigators — and they were well above the 200-foot limit for that location.
I also think the helicopter pilots may have been thinking they saw the plane in question but they were focused on a different plane – something I’ve read speculated about in other articles. The comments to this one focused, however – and understandably, I think – on the revelation that the flight instructor told the pilot to turn about 15 seconds before the crash occurred. The wording here is that she “missed” his order, but what does that mean? She certainly didn’t follow it; that we know. But did she hear it? Did she disregard it on hearing it? Was her failure to respond the result of panic, confidence, or distraction? I don’t see that we’ll ever know.
Because Rebecca Lobach was female, there is a great deal of talk online about her having been a DEI hire. We don’t know that’s true, although it’s certainly possible. I’ve also read criticism saying that her previous 500 hours in a Blackhawk was a surprisingly low total, although that’s a subject on which I have no expertise whatsoever.
More from the article:
“The Black Hawk was 15 seconds away from crossing paths with the jet. Warrant Officer Eaves then turned his attention to Captain Lobach. He told her he believed that air traffic control wanted them to turn left, toward the east river bank,” the Times wrote.
“He believed”? I have yet to find an exact quote, which would be helpful (if you see one, please put it and the link in the comments). Did he order her? Was he tentative? Could he have taken charge and done it himself if he thought disaster was imminent? I have no answers to those questions, but that’s what I’d like to know. I’ve also seen speculation that she didn’t obey because she outranked him, but I’ve seen answers from people who claim to have been in the military that indicates in a situation where he’s the examiner, rank wouldn’t matter.
RIP to all who lost their lives in this terrible tragedy of errors.
NOTE: I’ve also seen speculation that she did this purposely in a murder/suicide. I think that’s preposterous, because even without knowing anything about her emotional state, it would be an extremely difficult thing to do in terms of the trajectories. It’s not like hitting a large stationary target such as the World Trade Center, nor is it like crashing into a mountain or the ground.
Western Europe’s decisions leave its power grid vulnerable
[Hat tip: commenter “Bob Wilson.”]
Yesterday there was a blackout in Spain, Portugal, and parts of France. From Michael Shellenberger:
It was one of the largest peacetime blackouts Europe has ever seen. And it was not random. It was not an unforeseeable event. It was the exact failure that many of us have been, repeatedly, warning lawmakers about for years — warnings that Europe’s political leaders systematically chose to ignore.
The bulk of the essay is for paid subscribers, which I’m not, but there are quotes here:
As countries replaced heavy, spinning plants with lightweight, inverter-based generation, the grid became faster, lighter, and far more sensitive to disruptions. That basic physical reality was spelled out in public warnings as far back as 2017. …
Although political leaders promised that renewable energy would provide stable, affordable power, in practice, Spain grew more reliant on the remaining nuclear and natural gas plants to sustain inertia — even as the government pushes them to close. …
Despite all these warnings, political and regulatory energy in Europe remained focused on accelerating renewable deployment, not upgrading the grid’s basic stability. In Spain, solar generation continued to climb rapidly through 2023 and early 2024.
Coal plants closed. Nuclear units retired.
On many spring days by 2025, Spain’s midday solar generation exceeded its total afternoon demand, leading to frequent negative electricity prices.
The system was being pushed to the limit.
And [yesterday], at 12:35 pm, it broke. …
Unless Spain rapidly invests in synthetic inertia, maintains and expands its nuclear fleet, or adds some other new form of heavy rotating generation, the risk of future blackouts will only grow worse.
There’s much more information of a technical nature at the link, but apparently the problem has to do with the grid being in a “low inertia condition” and “oscillations in very high voltage lines” causing “synchronization failures.”
Modern society is heavily heavily dependent on the generation of power, and the decisions many industrialized nations have made in recent years regarding power generation seem nearly suicidal. Of course, the response of those who made those decisions would be that the goal is to prevent an even more suicidal situation as a result of AGW. But whether or not you buy into the AGW scare, it seems to me that nuclear power would be an obvious answer.
Open thread 4/28/2025
Suddenly, it’s 1960!
I’ve never taken much interest in cars. I see them as a mode of transportation, and my concern is with drivability and safety features, with looks a distant third. Even as a child growing up in the 1950s I didn’t take much interest in how they looked, except for liking pink ones and turquoise-blue ones, which were not all that uncommon then.
Ditto car advertisements. I just didn’t pay attention – except for one ad campaign that I remember vividly.
The year was 1957 and the ad was for Plymouth, the make of car my mother drove. The musical pitch was “Suddenly, it’s 1960!” The reason this made such an impression on me had little to do with the car and everything to do with the slogan. After all, as far as I was concerned, it had been the 1950s forever. I didn’t recall any other decade. 1960 seemed impossibly futuristic, like a science fiction dream. The ad opened my eyes to the fact that the 60s were coming, although in the far-distant three-years-away future.
Last night it occurred to me that I could probably find some of these ads on YouTube. Sure enough, this came up:
I have to admit it’s a sharp-looking car.
This gives “they” pronouns a whole new meaning
Ontario’s top court has ruled the province must cover the cost of a penile-sparing vaginoplasty for a transgender resident who does not identify as exclusively female or male and who wishes to have both genitalia.
In a unanimous decision released this week, a three-judge panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal confirmed a lower court’s ruling that the novel phallus-preserving surgery qualifies as an insured service under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. …
In a letter accompanying the request, her doctor said that because K.S. is “not completely on the ‘feminine’ end of the spectrum” it was important for her to have a vagina while maintaining her penis, adding that the Crane Center for Transgender Surgery in Austin, Tx.,”has an excellent reputation” for gender-affirming surgery, “and especially with these more complicated procedures.”
I have heard of this sort of surgery before, as well as a trend for surgery that obliterates the genitalia entirely.
RIP Virginia Giuffre
The internet is buzzing over the sad news that Virginia Giuffre, Epstein accuser and accuser of many others, has committed suicide at the age of 41. The talk I’ve seen, however, isn’t so much about the event itself as about the idea that it wasn’t a suicide at all but a murder in order to silence her.
I disagree, and I’ll explain why.
I see Giuffre as a victim of Epstein and Maxwell, and probably of various people before that, as well as a dysfunctional upbringing. She alleged having been sexually abused as a young child, then living for a while on the streets and being abused there, then falling in with one older man who sexually abused her and then Epstein, all while underage. I don’t doubt that this history is mostly or substantially true: she was damaged and vulnerable early on.
However, she ultimately extended her accusations greatly:
In court documents from a civil suit that were released from seal in 2019, Giuffre named several others that she claims Epstein and Maxwell instructed her to have sex with, including hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin, attorney Alan Dershowitz, politician Bill Richardson, the late MIT scientist Marvin Minsky, lawyer George J. Mitchell, and MC2 modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel. Many of the men denied Giuffre’s allegations
Dershowitz ultimately got an admission from Giuffre, which I wrote about in this previous post:
… [O]ne of the main people on whom this perception of Epstein shopping young women around for other rich and/or famous men rests is a woman named Virginia Giuffre. You can read about her here and in particular about her accusations against Alan Dershowitz here. Read about her here also. Note that in the latter article she says, “When you are abused, you know your abuser. I might not have my dates right, I might not have my times right… but I know their faces and I know what they’ve done to me.” And yet later, regarding her allegations that she had sex with Dershowitz six times, she said maybe her accusations against him were a case of mistaken identity. Oopsies!
I have come to my own conclusions about her veracity, and you can come to yours.
As I said, I believe Giuffre was an extremely troubled person who’d been abused early in life and that made her vulnerable to all sorts of woe and upheaval later in life. It also made her vulnerable to suicide. It seems to me likely that the proximate cause of her suicide was related to the fact that her husband and she had separated and were involved in a custody battle that seems to have been quite bitter.
Here’s an article from three weeks ago:
Another photo Virginia posted on Sunday, showing her lying on a hospital bed covered in bruises, along with her statement that she had “four days to live” caused the same amount of shock. It wasn’t long, though, until questions began to be raised. Police said there had been only a “minor crash” with no reports of serious injuries, while sources close to Virginia said her post had been a “mistake”. …
The troubling selfie – which Virginia later said she didn’t mean to be a public post – may have been a cry for help. The sex abuse survivor reportedly recently split from her husband of two decades, Robert Giuffre, and became estranged from their three teenage children – two sons and a daughter. Until recently the family had been living an idyllic and quiet life in a £1millions seaside six-bedroomed home in Ocean Reef, Perth. She was reportedly paid more than £12million by Prince Andrew to settled her case out of court.
It was through her husband that Virginia finally escaped paedophile Epstein after years of abuse. In 2002 aged 19, as part of her escape plan, she asked the billionaire to pay her training as a message therapist and he agreed, flying her to an international training school in Thailand – but only on the condition that she would meet a young Thai girl there and bring her back to the US. There she met Robert, an Australian martial arts trainer, and the pair married after ten days. She later credit having with having “rescued me from Epstein and Maxwell’s clutches”. …
However in recent months Virginia’s close bond with the family who supported and protected for so many years appears to have broken down. After her alleged split with Robert it is said that she has been unable to see her children, who were placed with him. It was also revealed this week that a restraining order had been placed on Virginia, which she had then allegedly broken and was charged by police on March 14 – 10 days before the crash on March 24. Virginia had entered no plea in a court appearance and was next due to appear in front of a magistrate on April 9.
And in the weeks before her crash, she appeared to be struggling to cope without her children. In a post on March 22, she wrote: “My beautiful babies have no clue how much I love them and they’re being poisoned with lies. I miss them so very much. I have been through hell & back in my 41 years but this is incredibly hurting me worse than anything else. Hurt me, abuse me but don’t take my babies. My heart is shattered and every day that passes my sadness only deepens.”
Her father Sky Roberts also told how Virgina had been “very depressed” recently, adding that he was “hoping she can hang on” amid her family life struggles and that her younger brother is “trying to get her spirits up”. He told the Daily Mail she is “in really bad shape. I feel like crying. I love my daughter more than life.’
As I said, that article appeared three weeks before her death. It indicates quite clearly, in my opinion, a person who was in deep emotional difficulty and at high risk for suicide. Her family doesn’t seem to be denying her suicide at this point, either – just the conspiracy-minded online contingent.
I’m not writing this to badmouth Giuffre, but just to say that her story is far more complex than the simplistic way it’s usually depicted. I’ll leave it at that and say RIP.
More on the arrest of Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan
Our British visitor “David Clayton” is highly offended and downright outraged by Judge Dugan’s arrest:
The FBI arresting a judge.
I am not surprised but probably not for the same reasons as you Neo. Your country and its constitution is being dragged into the mire by a liar who frightens his supporters into tolerating anything.
And you cheer him on. Doesn’t any of this excessive executive power worry you? The endless EO’s, the thoroughly cowed Congress and the imperilled judiciary.
Your entire constitution was written to prevent one man rule but one man is ruling.
Is there anything Trump will do that you won’t tolerate?
And here I thought that, to the David Claytons of the world (because he is hardly alone in his sentiments), no one is above the law. Apparently, however, judges are above the law, and can make up their own law and/or defy the actual law in order to assist a criminal illegal alien if they happen to feel so disposed.
Good to know.
And the law involved in the case was not something esoteric. Unlike the bizarre lawfare cases the left brought against Trump during the Biden years, in which the law was tortured and twisted and turned inside out and used in completely novel and previously-unthought-of ways in order to “get” him, the case in which Dugan decided to help the defendant was a pretty straightforward matter.
It is actually the left which will tolerate nearly anything – including, apparently, a judge who protects an illegal alien who is charged with beating up two people in a domestic assault – protects him from being arrested by letting him out a back door in order to evade apprehension by ICE. Because that’s a summary of the facts of the case.
More here:
[FBI director Patel said] “We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest.”
Dugan was charged with two criminal counts of “obstructing and impeding a proceeding before a department or agency of the United States” and “concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest,” according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday.
County court records show the undocumented immigrant in the Milwaukee case — Eduardo Flores-Ruiz — was set to appear in court on April 18 before Dugan for a pretrial conference in a case where he has been charged with three misdemeanor counts of battery/domestic abuse connected to an incident on March 12. The case is ongoing.
Federal prosecutors allege Flores-Ruiz illegally entered the U.S. from Mexico and was issued an Expedited Removal order in January 2013, according to a criminal complaint.
Bondi alleged that Flores-Ruiz beat his roommate and a woman so badly that they needed to be hospitalized and that he continued to be belligerent in the hospital before his arrest. …
“The courtroom deputy [later] saw Judge DUGAN get up and heard Judge DUGAN say something like ‘Wait, come with me,'” the complaint states. “Despite having been advised of the administrative warrant for the arrest of Flores-Ruiz, Judge DUGAN then escorted Flores-Ruiz and his counsel out of the courtroom through the ‘jury door,’ which leads to a nonpublic area of the courthouse.”
“So she continues, continues with her docket, finishes her docket. Two victims sit in court all morning long waiting and at the end. The prosecutors say ‘What happened? Why didn’t the case get called?'” Bondi said.
Seems pretty lawless to me.
No one is above the law, including a judge. Judges are not saints. In the past, some of them have even been convicted of crimes (for a list, please take a look at this). The criminal complaint against Dugan can be found here, with the details of the allegations against the judge. In addition, the situation is not new:
The case is similar to one brought during the first Trump administration against a Massachusetts judge, who was accused of helping a man sneak out a back door of a courthouse to evade a waiting immigration enforcement agent.
Prosecutors dropped the case against Newton District Judge Shelley Joseph in 2022 under the Democratic Biden administration after she agreed to refer herself to a state agency that investigates allegations of misconduct by members of the bench.
The Justice Department had previously signaled that it was going to crack down on local officials who thwart federal immigration efforts.
The department in January ordered prosecutors to investigate for potential criminal charges any state and local officials who obstruct or impede federal functions. As potential avenues for prosecution, a memo cited a conspiracy offense as well as a law prohibiting the harboring of people in the country illegally.
As far as Clayton’s idea of Trump as displaying “excessive power” goes, Trump didn’t invent immigration law or the concept of illegal aliens; he has been enforcing laws passed by Congress governing immigration, in accord with his own presidential powers over immigration which are given to presidents by the US Constitution. But I guess rogue judges are just fine with the left as long as they are members of the Trump “resistance.”
One can read more about the Massachusetts case against Shelley Joseph here. The allegations were quite serious – although not as serious as the Dugan case. From the article:
Late last year, the [Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct] filed formal charges against Joseph with the state’s highest court, a surprisingly forceful step for a body that has only gone so far five other times since 2000.
And that’s in ultra-liberal Massachusetts, so her offense was considered serious, even there. I can’t find any news of a ruling on Joseph so perhaps one hasn’t been made yet.
Open thread 4/26/2025
Will Russia deal over Ukraine?
I dunno, but there are indications that the answer is “yes”:
In an excerpt of an interview that is set to air in full on Sunday, Lavrov told CBS News that he agreed with President Donald Trump’s assertion that talks between Ukraine and Russia were “moving in the right direction.” …
However, Lavrov also told CBS News that there were “some specific points, elements of the deal, which need to be fine-tuned,” but did not explain what was being negotiated.
Lavrov also apparently made it clear to CBS News that Russia would not give up Crimea, which the country seized from Ukraine in 2014. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that his country would not recognize Russian control of Crimea, as it would go against Ukraine’s constitution. Trump slammed Zelenskyy over the “inflammatory” remark and said in a post on Truth Social that the comment was “very harmful” to peace efforts.
Note that Crimea was lost during the Obama administration – and of course the present Ukraine war began during the Biden administration.
I don’t see that there’s any way whatsover that Ukraine is getting Crimea back, and I don’t mean just through diplomacy. I mean that it wasn’t happening through war, either. And I believe any negotiated settlement will include an agreement that Ukraine will not become a NATO member. Zelensky talks tough on Crimea, but that may merely be his initial bargaining position.
Time will tell.