Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Neil Macdonald - Page 2

The plain Canadian fact is that relative to other Western democracies, the U.S. in particular, there isn't much difference between our two main political parties.

No dog means no disgusting surprises on carpets - thank goodness for those irrigating vacuums they sell at Canadian Tire - no hefty vet bills, no destruction of everything from eyeglasses to baseboards to legs of furniture, and no responsibility.

In early 2008, before the criminal greed of America's mortgage and investment bank industry nearly destroyed the world's economy, the balance sheet of the U.S. Federal Reserve stood at about $870 billion.

Some economists seem to think that only a credentialed economist has the right to be utterly wrong about an issue of economics. Their contempt for amateurs - columnists with broad audiences, for example - would sear the lungs if inhaled.

Like Donald Trump, Trudeau is in high office because of how the system groups and allocates votes. No wonder the Liberals broke their 2015 promise to reform the system and bring in proportional representation.

I've seen former vice president, and now Democratic leadership candidate Joe Biden up close. He seemed a pleasant fellow. But I'm damned if I can remember anything he said, besides how much he loves everybody.

Canada needs to be flood-proofed, and somebody has to pay for it. Yes, there are other threats, too - fire, hail, wind, snow load, permafrost loss and shoreline erosion will all cost a great deal of money to remediate - but flooding is the big, urgent one.

I am delighted to see the government spending more money to improve Indigenous life, and I would be happy to see even more spent.

I do not hear any plan for sheltering Canadians from the next global financial crisis, which is coming for all of us as surely as arthritis is stalking the boomers.

And what are the Liberals' election talking points, in this age of environmental insecurity and economic anxiety? That Andrew Scheer is scary.

It is no exaggeration to say many evangelicals consider Trump an anointed figure; a clearly venal man somehow chosen by their God to rescue America from venality.

People who don't own dogs can stay out as late as they please, or drive off on a whim for the weekend, and go on holiday as long as they like, whenever they like, without arranging a kennel, then feeling guilty about arranging a kennel, and then spending even more money to have someone stay in the house and dogsit.

Trump is the white evangelicals' version of V.I. Lenin's 'useful idiot,' a character who is helping achieve their apocalyptic fever dreams, but who will perish along with the rest of us as the faithful perch in the clouds.

I saw a bumper sticker once that stayed with me: 'God help me become the person my dog thinks I am.' I don't have the heart for this. Meaning, of course, that I'm the failure.

My dad, toward the end of his life, said our health care system expects you to check your brains at the door. He was right. Yell at your politicians. Lose control.

But political parties must claim to be radically different from one another, and political journalism must play along, or else why exist? So the Liberals and Tories concentrate on what does distinguish them: their leaders. That in itself just about guarantees a campaign of ad hominem gooning.

Trump has not only ordered a disturbing military buildup in the Persian Gulf, he's determined to punish any country that has continued to do business with Iran since he withdrew from the nuclear treaty the United States instigated and signed in 2015.

The hungry little radge never takes a vacation, which is why, when legislatures aren't sitting and other news-generating institutions are on summer schedule, assignment desks will pounce on anything that even smells like news.

I don't know anyone who thinks the SNC Lavalin mess was well handled, and it was all driven by Justin Trudeau. A smart prime minister would have realized early that the situation was unwinnable, that trying to have a prosecutor overruled was unwise in the extreme, and let it go.

Trump eventually slurs anyone who inconveniences him, and the plain, measurable fact is that a large majority of Jewish American voters continue to vote Democrat.

The prime directive of media training is that the question never matters. That an honest response is for amateurs. Media trainers advise memorizing a set of non-responses and repeating them no matter what question is asked.

The modern election campaign is created by power in order to convince the realm that all is well, and, further, that its inhabitants are being presented with new information and a clear choice.

While Trump, and, yes, Biden spend time with wealthy donors, Warren refuses big money. She also refused to participate in a Fox News town hall, wanting nothing to do with what she calls Fox's 'hate for profit' business plan. She is unafraid to name her enemies.

So America's president now says most Jewish American voters are either ignorant or disloyal. It's such a dreadful thing to say, so heavy with historical hatred and violence, that it's utterly unsurprising in U.S. President Donald Trump's mouth. And his supporters nod and say he's right.

Canada has treated abortion as just another medical procedure since 1988, when the Supreme Court struck down the old criminal law. Most Canadians seem to think that's fine.

In Trump's lizard political brain, all Jews should unconditionally support Israel, so all American Jews should support him, the greatest supporter of Israel in the history of America and Israel.

Yes, American medicine has its pathologies, but Canada's does, too, and we need to wake up. Government controls everything here, and governments only pay attention to polls at election time, not to angry patients.

Governments, many of them European, are actually offering - and investors are buying - bonds that are worth less at the end of five or 10 or even 30 years than their purchase price.

I am deeply sympathetic to Indigenous treatment at the hands of white society.

In the U.S. - yes, sorry, the U.S. - surgeons and doctors usually give you their cell phone numbers, and tell you to call anytime if anything goes wrong. They often call to follow up after a visit, or go over test results. They have email.

Trump's America is a midden. To hell with it. I am glad I don't live there anymore, and doubly glad to read about unlicensed barbers and annexes to grand old Ottawa hotels and the terrible dishonesty of the Canada Food Guide.

Trump is a travelling freak show, and bound to say or do something laughably stupid wherever he goes, so, because he's president, he's news.

The 'vote for me because the other guy is scary,' nana-nana-poo-poo stuff I just find useless.

There is a small industry out there called media training. It offers instruction on how to 'control a narrative,' to use that awful term. Most politicians are clients.

Can we agree there are no stupid questions? Probably not. But let's try anyway.

It's a lovely thing to see intelligent argument, unbending principle and policy go up against demagoguery, nativism and vulgar name-calling.

Trump cannot be re-elected without the votes of evangelical Christians, a group of people who, because of their heated eschatological dreams, are simultaneously capable of blindly supporting Israel and regarding American Jews with suspicion.

Our virtuous system is already corrupt. Does anyone seriously think that cabinet ministers or captains of industry or powerful officials wait in the same lines as the rest of us?

Quibbling over the definition of genocide does nothing but help obscure the long history of vicious racism and undeniable suffering of Indigenous people in this country. It's bad enough whatever you want to call it.

Elizabeth Warren fully intends to change the system, and says so. When she said how good it felt to be with working people in a workers' hall, you knew it wasn't a platitude.